Thoughts on amputation : Being a supplement to the letters on compound fractures, and a comment on Dr. Bilguer's book on this operation. To which is added a short essay on the use of opium in mortifications.

  • Kirkland, Thomas, 1721-1798.
Date:
1780
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoughts on amputation : Being a supplement to the letters on compound fractures, and a comment on Dr. Bilguer's book on this operation. To which is added a short essay on the use of opium in mortifications. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    ter, will it not feem probable that it mult always do harm, where nervous influence is lefs powerful than it ought to be ? In a man of eighty, not- withftanding he was very adlive at that time of life, the vis vita muft of courfe be weakened. The cold, as he told me, had a powerful effect upon both feet, and perhaps, by deftroying the remains of nervous energy in one of them, the mortification was brought on, and afterwards in fome degree fpread, by the afliftance of opium ; becaufe it flopped when the opium was laid afide, and a little vigour given to the habit. To pre- vent, therefore, an indifcriminate ufe of this me- dicine, in all mortifications of the parts we have been fpeaking of, we will more clearly, as far as our prefent experience enables us, diftinguifh the cafes in which fedatives may do fervice, and thole irt which they fliould not be employed. It is eafy to conceive, that in people advanced in life, who have not been very temperate in eat- ing or drinking, or in-both, the juices may have acquired acrimony ; and accordingly the difeafe in queftion feems fometimes to arife from this caufe, accompanied with an extreme degree of irri- tability of the part, which may perhaps be owing to the conftant irriration which fuch a ftate of the juices, when they once ftagnate, muft occafion : and in which ftate, opium and the alteratives men- tioned, feem to be proper. It begins with a black or blue fpor, fomewhere about the toes the cuticle feparates, a lividnefs appears underneath, the difeafe gradually extends itfelf /