Institutes and practice of surgery: being outlines of a course of lectures (Volume 1).

  • Gibson, William, 1788-1868.
Date:
1845
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Institutes and practice of surgery: being outlines of a course of lectures (Volume 1). 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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    poultice should still be continued for some time. Frequently an unnecessary and profuse discharge is kept up; in that case mild dressings must supersede the use of the poultice. Hectic cannot, always, be removed radically. When it pro- ceeds from some local disease, curable by an operation or by other means, the fever will speedily terminate after the disease has ceased. When the hectic cause is such as not to admit of removal, the surgeon can do no more than alleviate the urgent symptoms. The proper medicines are bark, wine, opium, digi- talis, and the acids. Animal food is injurious; but vegetables, if not highly seasoned, prove very useful. Dr. Brocklesby* has commended the free use of Seltzer water, to relieve the symp- toms of hectic. See Home on the Properties of Pus, in Observations on Ulcers, p. 13, edit. 2d, 1801; Hunter on Inflammation, p. 371-415, 496; G. Pearson's Observations and Experiments on Pus, in the Philosophical Transactions, 1811; Darwin's Experiments, establishing a Criterion between Mucilaginous and Purulent Mat- ter, 1780; Thomson on Inflammation, p. 308-312-323. SECTION II. ULCERATIVE INFLAMMATION. It has been well remarked by Mr. Hunter, that whenever any solid part of our bodies undergoes a diminution, or is broken in upon in consequence of any disease, it is the absorbing sys- tem which does it.f The term ulcerative absorption was, there- fore, invented by that great pathologist to express that morbid process by which the continuity of the different textures of the body is destroyed. By the ancients it was denominated erosion. Every texture of the body is, perhaps, liable to ulceration, but the skin and mucous membranes suffer more readily than other parts. This may be exemplified by the extensive erup- * Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. iv. p. 7. t Page 442.