War surgery / by Edmond Delorme ; translated by H. de Méric.

  • Delorme, E. (Edmond), 1847-1929.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: War surgery / by Edmond Delorme ; translated by H. de Méric. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fore we should strive to prevent them or to limit them by devoting particular and special care to wounds occurring in the regions of the large nerves. General diagnosis of wounds of the nerves by projectiles is in most cases easy ; but, when it is a question of deter¬ mining the nature of the lesion, the solution of the problem becomes difficult, often impossible. A great deal of quite unjustifiable interference is thus explained. Treatment.—The treatment, which not long ago was reduced to the symptomatic indications, has been enriched at the end of recent wars by improvements adapted from the technique of everyday surgery. In order to appreciate their full value we will revert to what we recently said on the subject before the Academy of Medicine (February 24, 1914).* This technique, we wish first to point out, concerns specially the work of the surgeons at the rear. At the front any intervention seems to be contra-indicated, were it only on account of the extreme difficulties of the diagnosis, of the complexity of a deceptive and excessive symptomatology, which takes time to be elucidated ; therefore at the front we must content ourselves with dressing the wound and avoiding all irritation. It is all the more indicated to make use of this technique at the rear, inasmuch as surgery of the nerves is not so urgent with regard to the time of intervention as surgery of the arteries ; and inasmuch as in the hospitals at the rear the surgeon can undertake these operations without being hurried, at the hour he chooses, and under the best sur¬ rounding conditions. One of the conditions for successful operation in these cases is very strict asepsis. We should certainly hesitate to put sutures into wounds * Report on a work by Professor Laurent of Brussels, Aneurysms and Wounds of Nerves in War Surgery, O. C.