Surgical diseases of infants and children / by P. Guersant ; translated from the French by Richard J. Dunglison.

  • Guersant, P. (Paul Louis Benoit), 1800-1869.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical diseases of infants and children / by P. Guersant ; translated from the French by Richard J. Dunglison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    LEEDS ckWEST-RIOING MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY CERVICAL ADENITIS. 25 pure tincture of iodine applied with a pencil every other day may hasten the resolution of the swelling. This method is often to be preferred to poultices, which may become sour or grow cold. Such are the means to be adopted to prevent suppuration and induration from occurring. 2. To hasten suppuration—When the process of suppuration is fairly established, we can no longer rely upon the use of resolvents. Sometimes, but rarely, blisters may succeed in aborting the abscess. We content ourselves then with emollients, usually in the form of general baths and greasy and ripening cataplasms. Finally, when fluctuation is evident, even before the skin becomes red, we, in common with many of our professional brethren, are favourable to opening the abscess, to prevent spontaneous openings, sometimes multiple, which lead to disintegration of the skin and to frightful scars. We do not absolutely reject the use of the knife, for there are some cases in which we have recourse to it, but we greatly prefer a procedure extolled by MM. Alquie and Bonnafont, namely, the filiform seton, which leaves no traces of the operation. We take for this purpose three or four silk threads, which we pass through the abscess by means of a fine flat needle, in the proper direction, that indicated for the incision, in such a manner that one of the punctures shall be more sloping, and the threads shall be in the direction of the folds of the skin, or following the direction of the muscular fibres, those of the sterno-mastoid, for example. When the little seton, which is tied over as soon as it is passed through, is introduced at the time when fluctuation is evident, the pus will be seen escaping from the punctures, and its flow may be increased by means of pressure. The application of poul- tices must be continued, and care taken every day to move the thread. Under this treatment the abscess discharges itself in a few days. The seton should be withdrawn when there is no longer pus or swelling, for if any tumefaction still exists, its presence hastens the softening of the hard part of the abscess. There remain after this but two punctures, which, at a little later period, leave no traces. 3. To remove induration.—When, in certain cases, the adenitis terminates in induration, we resort to all the resolvents already suggested, iodized ointments, compound plaster of mercury, etc.