On gunshot wounds of arteries, traumatic hemorrhage, and traumatic aneurism / by John A. Lidell.

  • Lidell, John A.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On gunshot wounds of arteries, traumatic hemorrhage, and traumatic aneurism / by John A. Lidell. 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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    followed very closely the injunction to keep as still as possible in the recumbent posture ; directed a stimulating plaster to be applied, and the pressure to be removed to other situations by arranging pillows. August 5—Discharge from sac had subsided to a small quan- tity of healthy pus, and the orifice was manifestly contracting. We hoped that adhesion of the sac was taking place. Patient's condition seemed to be favorable in every respect, except that he had been losing flesh for several days past without obvious cause. For want of any other reason, we attributed it to the extreme heat of the weather, the temperature both day and night having been unprecedented ever since July 25th, the mercury at mid-day ranging from 90° to 100°, and seldom falling below 80° at night. August 6—A profuse flow of blood from the sac came on this morning without warning; the loss of blood being so rapid as to threaten speedy death. The officer of the day was close at hand, and stopped the bleeding by injecting about one ounce of liquor ferri persulph. into the bottom of the sac, through a female catheter, introduced for the purpose. The hemorrhage ceased immediately. We had been emboldened to use the per- sulphate of iron freely in this way, because we had a few weeks before (June 22) stopped a troublesome secondary flow, in alarming quantity, of arterial blood from the cavity of a large abscess, associated with gunshot fracture of the right thigh, by injecting about two drachms of liquor ferri persulph. through a catheter, carried into the neighborhood of the supposed source of the hemorrhage, a branch of the profunda artery, and no unpleasant effect of any kind followed it. Again, about the same time, we had been troubled to manage a case of general oozing of blood from the cut surface of a thigh, amputated secondarily for gunshot injury. After trying exposure to the air, ice water, and even ice, without effect, we stopped this bleeding immediately by covering the end of the stump with pledgets of lint soaked in liquor ferri persulph. Aside from pretty severe pain, which soon subsided, no unpleasant conse- quence of any kind followed. We did not discover any evi- dence of even the feeblest action as an escharotic, and even have since thought that the case progressed better than other amputations of the same class. In consequence of the secondary hemorrhage and the efforts to repress it, the aneurismal sac became filled up again to the original size. August 10—Another severe hemorrhage occurred from the same orifice ; it was readily stopped by again injecting persul- phate of iron in solution. August 11—Profuse hemorrhage occurred to-day through the opening of the posterior orifice made by the bullet, after it had been healed for more than a month. This bleeding was also