A treatise on the anatomy, pathology and surgical treatment of aneurism / by Antonio Scarpa ; translated from the Italian, with notes, by John Henry Wishart.

  • Scarpa, Antonio, 1752-1832.
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the anatomy, pathology and surgical treatment of aneurism / by Antonio Scarpa ; translated from the Italian, with notes, by John Henry Wishart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    about it. I advised him to submit immediately to the Huntericin operation, since the circumstances of his disease were very favourable in every respect to the success of that operation. After returning to Turin, he could not make up his mind to that, and contented himself, for the space of about ten months more, with compressing the swelling, and with losing blood frequently, especially when there was an evident increase of the noise and pulsation of jthe tumour. In spite of this, the aneu- rism augmented to the size of a large orange, on the top of which the skin, on account of the uninterrupt- ed pressure upon the tumour, had become livid, thin, and threatened to burst. The base or centre of the aneurism was situated so high in the thigh, that on measuring the distance from the crural arch down- wards, there were only two inches, or a little more, between the origin of the profunda femoral artery and the tumour. The subjacent leg and foot, however, were not at all preternaturally swelled. The frequent evacuations of blood, the pains, want of sleep, and continual agitation of mind in which the patient lived, had reduced him to such a state of depres- sion and emaciation, that, on returning to Pavia, he did not appear to be any longer in a condition to undergo a radical cure of his disease. Notwithstanding this, in reflecting upon the smallness of the incision which is made in tying the superficial femoral artery, and on the little importance of the symptoms consequent to this incision, I resolved to try it in this patient ; the more so, as amputation was inadmissible, and the aneurism threatened to burst. On the 3d of March 1803, in the presence of a num- ber of students, having placed the patient in an inclin- ed posture on the right edge of the bed, with the left