Case of ovarian tumour complicated by cardiac and renal disease : ovariotomy, death / by J. Knowsley Thornton ; with report of post-mortem, by Alban Doran.

  • Thornton, John Knowsley.
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of ovarian tumour complicated by cardiac and renal disease : ovariotomy, death / by J. Knowsley Thornton ; with report of post-mortem, by Alban Doran. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    /O WITH REPORT OF POST-MORTEM. , By Alban Doran, F.R.C.S. Surgeon for Out-patients to the Samaritan. The application of Lister’s antiseptic method to the per- formance of ovariotomy is just at present so closely watched both by the friends and the foes of the system that the cause of death is anxiously sought after in every fatal case. The present one demonstrates so perfectly how well the healing processes had progressed in the wounded parts, in spite of the most unfavourable condition of other vital organs and the impure state of the blood itself, that I think it a duty to place the details on record at once. Without such a record the case is only too likely to be classed among the failures of the antiseptic method. E. S., aged fifty-six, married twenty-one years, but never pregnant, a pallid woman with pinched face, and looking older than her age, came under my care at the Samaritan Hospital in the middle of June, 1878, having been sent to the surgical wards by Dr. Routh. The abdomen was greatly distended by a large cyst, with evidences of secondary masses growing in its walls. The pelvis was occupied by a large hard mass lying to the right of and behind the uterus, which was pushed over to the left side. The mass moved with the abdominal tumour, but was so wedged in the pelvis it was impossible to say whether it was adherent or not. The uterine cavity measured three and a half inches, and seemed free from the tumour. There was no evidence of abdominal adhesion. History : Had noticed increase of size during last five years, but it had not been rapid till two years back. In June, 1877, she got into the hands of an advertising quack,