Observations on the nature and treatment of calculous diseases / by Benjamin W. Dudley.

  • Dudley, Benjamin W. (Benjamin Winslow), 1785-1870.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nature and treatment of calculous diseases / by Benjamin W. Dudley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The strong and athletic, placed under the favorable circum- stances of others, who may have been freely and heathily evacuated in the treatment of their maladies, whereby the digestive circle of organs are maintained in their functions, would have given to Mr. Hunti r a very different result as a consequence of injuries and capital operations. Fulness of health and strength of constitution are, in fact, the surestguar- antees ol speedy restoration from great injuries and capital operations; while danger may be apprehended in proportion to defect in one or both of these particulars. When the strength of constitution is sufficient for all the purposes of restoration, and the various important organs are in the exercise of their accustomed offices, success must ensue to an operation, what- ever may be its nature or extent, provided parts essential to life be not actually destroyed. The efficacy of blood-letting, as a preparatory remedy in subduing the susceptibility to in- flammation after operations, is relied upon by some of the most distinguished practitioners of Great Britain. My own experience is by no mean? in favor of this remedy; nor am I inclined to the opinion, that it can be sustained in general practice. The abstraction of a portion of the circulating fluids is necessarily followed by a loss of balance between the vascular and other systems, and the consequence of this loss of equilibrium, is torpor in some one of the more susceptible organs; a condition of things favorable to the de- velopment of inflammatory action, when the causes calcula- ted to excite it are at hand. Inflammation succeeding to the frequent use of the lancet is the more difficult to control, by reason of the extent of the morbid associations which have been established, by t'.ie repealed abstraction of blood, which must subside before healthy action can be restored. A distinguished oculist of Great Brilain ascribed his success principally to the repeated use of the lancet before his patients were operated upon. I have never bled any patient, to pre- pare him for an operation; and the only case of cataract in which I have failed, because of the supervention of inflamma- tion, in a practice of five-and-twenty years, happened in alady