An essay on surgical treatment of hæmorrhoidal tumours / by Henry Lee.

  • Lee, Henry, 1817-1898.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on surgical treatment of hæmorrhoidal tumours / by Henry Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    able number of times in the treatment of hemorrhoidal and other kinds of tumours. It possesses the great advantage of allowing the surgeon at once to remove any part that he may wish, enabling him at the same time completely to control the hemorrhage. It also furnishes him with the means with certainty of preventing the occur¬ rence of bleeding after the operation. The difficulty of accomplishing this, as is well known, has prevented sur¬ geons from employing excision of late years for the cure of hemorrhoids. M. Dupuytren, who advocated excision in these cases, on account of the pain and inconvenience at¬ tending the usual mode of operation, nevertheless confesses that hemorrhage to a serious extent occurred in two-fifths of the cases upon which he operated, and in which no means had been taken to prevent subsequent bleeding. By the means now recommended, the great and only objec¬ tion to the excision of hemorrhoidal tumours is removed. In the cases upon which I have operated, I have found occasionally that some haemorrhage has continued after the cut surface had been touched with the nitric acid; but in no case have I found the least inconvenience from this source where the actual cautery had been employed. The advantages of this operation, as compared with others employed for the cure of hemorrhoidal tumours, I conceive to be :— ]. That, where the application of the strong nitric acid alone is not sufficient, it is less painful than any other means equally efficacious. 2. That it is safer than the common operation now in general use. 3. That it requires less confinement, and the patient is much sooner convalescent, than after an operation with the ligature in the ordinary way. Each of these points requires a brief consideration. The pain caused by the application of the ligature to an hemorrhoidal tumour may be divided into that which is felt during the operation, and that which is subsequently experienced. That produced during the operation is caused in a great measure by the forcible dragging upon the part during the time the ligature is being tightened. It is very difficult during the operation for the surgeon to get his hand on the same plane as the protruded bowel. The necessary consequence is, that the ligatured portion of mu¬ cous membrane is drawn out to a level with the hands. The inconvenience produced by this “dragging” upon the