Remarks on hepatic phlebotomy and puncturing the liver's capsule as remedial measures in hepatic diseases / by George Harley.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on hepatic phlebotomy and puncturing the liver's capsule as remedial measures in hepatic diseases / by George Harley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    MEASURES IN HEPATIC DISEASES. • / By GEORGE HARLEY, M.D., F.R.S., Ex-Physician to University College Hospital, London. Seeing that the study of liver-diseases has not only come prominently to the front in recent years, but that, at present, when hepatic surgery is actively engaging the attention of some of the most acute and original thinkers in the profession, both in Europe and America, the members of our own Association, familiar with liver-diseases, take a deep interest in the subject, as was manifested not alone by the animated discussion which followed upon the reading of the above- named papers at our agreeable and instructive Brighton meeting, but by the letters1 that have since appeared in the Journal, I crave leave to make a few more observations on the matter. This appears to be all the more desirable since it is highly probable that these newly proposed methods of treatment may open up an entirely fresh epoch in the handling of many of the liver-cases which have hitherto been regarded as among the most intractable, and consequently most hope- less, forms of disease. As well as from the fact that some of the gentle- men that have commented upon them in the pages of the Journal have unwittingly confounded the two above-named new forms of operative procedure with two old ones—namely, hepatic exploration, associated with accidental haemorrhage, on the one hand, and the Chinese system of acupuncture, upon the other—entirely distinct surgical procedures, which resemble them in nothing, except in so far as it is the same organ of the body that is operated upon, and the instruments employed happen to possess the same form. There being apparently no longer any doubt as to the practical value of the newly proposed method of hepatic phlebotomy in suitable cases, from even the personal experience of accidental hepatic haemorrhage 1 British Medical Journal, November 13th, p. 809 ; December 4th, pp. 1134-5. •Rcl^ioO