Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease, and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake.

  • Sheldrake, Timothy.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease, and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    kvity to a subject that must be obscured in proportion as it it is treated in a manner that deviates from brevity. The sixth in particular is a singular specimen of what may be eftected by treating a simple subject in an affected matiner. As Mr. T. has disclaimed all pretensions to the merit of treating his subject in the appropriate language of a pro- fessional man, he is only blameable in using the language of colloquial vulgarity, in a way that must lead those for whose use it is pretended he wrote it, into mistakes that may be of serious consequence. A professional man knows exactly the different situations of the bubonocele and .crural hernia; but if the unprofessional reader could annex: any idea to the words folding of the groin, he w^ould naturally use them in describing the crural hernia, which never descends into the scrotum, Turnbulized, the purse; and if he described a bubonocele whicii descended into the scrotum, he would never say it descended from the folding of the groin. Though professional men may smile at the absurdity of this mode of description, the use of it ought to be seriously deprecated, as tending to do mis- chief by giving false ideas of the disease to those who are sufficiently prone to misunderstand it. Mr. TurnbuU says, p. 50, It would be a criminal departure from my original intention, were I tj conceal the melancholy consequences that generally ensue from totally neglecting or treating this malady with inatten- tion. To elucidate this, I will state, however yminfol to mv feelings, the common elfects of a strangulqtsid hernia, v/hich, in many cases, might have been pre- vented, had the disease been properly treated on its original appearance, *' This is'a state of the disorder which is created by strong compression of the parts through' which the in- testines pass, which will not permit them to descend or return. The symptoms are, violent pains in the part where the intestines become sti;,angulated ; and, as the patient cannot void, he soon feels a nausea, which is succeedQcl by vomitings qf thick saliva. In a short time, th« excrements are discharged only throuoh the «« mouth; and, in this iiiiserable state, the afflicted persOi^ is in constant dread of suffocation. Profyse perspiration or fever succeeds; the extremities turn cold; the eyeg become fixed, and assume a frightful stare; mortifi- cation comes on; but, at intervals, when the senses return, the patient generally shrieks, or implores relief' m tunes expressive of lamentation and despair. At f < N «' length