Volume 1

The first lines of the practice of surgery : designed as an introduction to students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners / By Samuel Cooper.

  • Cooper, Samuel, 1780-1848.
Date:
1819-20
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first lines of the practice of surgery : designed as an introduction to students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners / By Samuel Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    the arteries contracting with increased force in inflammation, as a complete proof of their hypothesis. But this mode of accounting for the augmented throbbing of inflamed parts is hot universally admitted; and an endeavour has been made to explain the thing on very different principles, as will be pre- sently noticed. Hunter himself was far from drawing any such conclusion from the fact which he has cited; for all that he presumes to say is, that the increased throbbing, which can be felt in the inflamed part, and for some way frotn it, proves that the arterial system is dilating itself, and allowing more blood to pass than usual. The very first act of the vessels, when the stimulus whicli excites inflammation is applied, is exactly similar to a blush, simply an increase or distension beyond their natural size. Afterwards a new action begins, which is probably a separ- ation of the coagulating lymph, and the throwing of it out of the vessels.’^ I have already remarked, that it is this substance which chiefly causes the swelling of inflamed parts, by filling all their interstices. The observation, however, is not quite cor- rect, inasmuch as there is generally a proportion of serum likewise effused, w'hich is the cause of the soft, doughy, oede- matous tumor often seen about an inflamed part. The serum, which is quickly effused, is capable of being absorbed with equal rapidity. Whether extravasated coagulating lymph admits also of such removal has been very recently doubt^f; a circumstance, which i’ather surprises me, when numberless proofs of the fact are daily seen in the resolution of all exter- nal phlegmonous tumors; the cure of hernia humoralis; and the removal of nearly every kind of thickening and induration resulting from inflammation. Although all inflammations are attended with an effusion of coagulating lymph, yet, as Meckel observes, it happens in very different degrees, and does not bear any direct propor- tion, but often a contrary ratio to the violence of the inflam- niatiof), the dilatation of the vessels, and the quantity of blood contained in the part affected. Frequently it first coities on chiefly towards the termination of the affection, or, at least, after the process has somewhat declined from its highest pitch, being in this respect somewhat analogous to f; suppuration. The form under which the coagulating lymph appears on its first effusion, Meckel represents as being the same as that of * Hunter, p. 279. •f Parry’s Elements of Pathology and Therapeutics, p. 111. i 8ee Meckel’s Handbuch dcr Pathologischcn Anatomic, b. 2. abth. 2. p. 27.