Observations in surgery / by Benjamin Travers, jun.

  • Travers, Benjamin, 1783-1858.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations in surgery / by Benjamin Travers, jun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    206/246 (page 194)
    either of the head or lungs, opium in any form is contra-indicated, but henbane is given with the best effect at all times, sometimes with camphor, ipecacuanha, or the grey powder, at others uncom- bined and alone, on account of its great efficacy in restoring and tranquillising the nervous sj^stem without increasing headache, dyspnoea, or any other local derangement which may happen to prevail at so critical a moment. If after the regulation of the secretions, and the alleviation of pain, the local disease continues to spread, and the patient grows weaker, there will be too much reason to fear that the case may terminate fatally, especially in the aged. If the patient be not so reduced as to be actually in extremis^ alcoholic stimulants, as French brandy, port-wine, with full doses of cascarilla, or bark, holding the volatile salts in solution, are useful; and sometimes such active measures are followed by slow but certain reaction of a healthy kind; suppuration is now defined and forwarded, or sloughs cast off; rest and appetite return; and where change of air and a good diet can be procured, convalescence ensues even in the case of very old people. Acute fascial inflammation, in the surgical acceptation of that terra, is a very formidable disorder. Its causes are very various. It is pro- voked by punctured wounds by abrasion, by con- tusions ; but in its worst aspect it is sympathetic, or indicative of mischief and disease in the parts