A Manual of the Operations of Surgery, Joseph Bell [suggested reading .txt] 📗
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Polypi of the Rectum.—Pedunculated growths varying in consistence, shape, and size, but resembling each other in having a distinct stalk, and in frequently being protruded at stool.
Operation.—Invariably by ligature, which may be single round the stalk, if the tumour be globular and with a distinct narrow stalk, or by transfixion, if (as sometimes happens) the tumour be of uniform thickness throughout, like a worm.
Hæmorrhoids Or Piles.—In the treatment of piles it is the differential diagnosis that is troublesome and occasionally difficult; the operative interference required is generally very simple, if the nature of the case be rightly determined.
External piles.—Operation.—The apex of the soft flabby excrescence should be seized by a pair of catch-forceps, and it should be cut off close to its base with a knife, or, what is better, a pair of curved scissors. Any little vessel which jets may then be secured. If, instead of numerous individual tumours, a ring of skin round the anus be involved, the whole of it should be shaved off, but not very close to its base, lest too great contraction of the anal orifice should ensue.
If the surgeon, after excising a pile or piles, will take the trouble to stitch up the wound with catgut, he will find the cure much more rapid and less painful than when this is omitted.
Internal piles.—Incision is extremely dangerous, from the vascularity of the parts, and their being so inaccessible from their position within the sphincter ani. Hence ligature is safer and equally effectual. The patient should be directed to sit over hot water, and strain till the whole of his piles are fairly protruded. The surgeon should then transfix the base of each separately with a curved needle bearing a strong double thread. The needle being cut off, the threads should be very firmly tied, each isolating its own half of the pile. The tying should be exceedingly tight, so as to cause instant and complete strangulation and death of the tumours. All the piles should be tied at the same sitting. If the piles are very small they may be secured without transfixion in a single noose after being seized by a hook or forceps. There is greater risk of the noose slipping than when the base has been transfixed.
The strangulated masses must then be returned into the bowel, and the patient kept in bed or on a sofa till the ligatures separate, which is generally not till the fourth or fifth day. A certain amount of urinary irritation, showing itself sometimes in strangury, sometimes in complete retention, occasionally follows this operation.
Mr. Smith of King's College, and many other surgeons, treat internal piles by means of an ivory clamp to hold them tight, while they are burned off by the actual cautery or the thermo-cautery at a low red heat. They claim that pyæmia more rarely follows this mode.
There are certain cases in which the lower inch or two of the rectum are found red and congested, and in which every stool is followed by the loss of a certain quantity of florid arterial blood, and yet no distinct hæmorrhoidal tumour is to be seen. In such cases the ligature is not applicable, and relief is obtained by the application of pure nitric acid, or other potential caustics to the bleeding surface, as recommended by Houston, Lee, Smith, Ashton, and others. These cases are comparatively rare, and whenever they can be applied, the ligature is much simpler, safer, and more certain.
Venous piles.—When a sudden effusion of blood has occurred into one of the varicose veins or sinuses of a congested anus, an oval or rounded tumour is felt, very tense, shining, and painful. To slit it freely up with an abscess lancet, and evert the clot inside, at once relieves all the symptoms.
CHAPTER XIII. TENOTOMY.For convenience' sake I group under this one head certain operations used for the relief of distortion, in which muscles or tendons are divided subcutaneously. Since the discovery of the principle by Delpech, and the application of it by Stromeyer, Dieffenbach, Little, and countless successors, it has been used for very many cases for which it is totally inapplicable, e.g. for the division of the muscles of the back in spinal curvature. Still there remain several deformities for the relief of which subcutaneous tenotomy is a most important remedy; chief among these are Wry Neck and Club-foot.
Operation for Wry Neck.—Subcutaneous section of the sterno-mastoid.—In what cases of wry neck is this operation suitable? In those only in which the muscles are the starting-point of the mischief. These are sometimes congenital, more frequently they commence in childhood. In cases where the distortion depends on disease of the cervical vertebræ, or is secondary to curvature of the spine, division of the muscle is worse than useless.
Operation.—A tenotomy knife, which should be sharp-pointed, narrow in the blade, with a blunt back, should be introduced through the skin a little to one side of the sternal portion of the affected muscle, passed along with its flat edge between the skin and the tendon, till it has fairly crossed the tendon; the blade should then be turned so that by a gradual sawing motion the edge may be made to divide the tendon about an inch above the sternum. A distinct snap will then be felt or heard, and the position of the head will be at once much improved. Exercise, warm bathing, and rubbing, will generally suffice to complete the cure, without it being necessary to call in the aid of the instrument-maker with his expensive apparatus.[166]
Operations for Club-Foot.—The following are the tendons which may require division in the cure of club-foot, and the operations for their division.
1. The tendo Achillis.—There are very few cases of true club-foot which can be successfully treated without division of the tendo Achillis. While in talipes equinis it is generally the only disturbing agent, in talipes varus and valgus it invariably increases and maintains the deformity, which the tibiales or peronei seem to originate.
Operation.—The foot being held at about a right angle with the leg, the operator should pinch up the skin over the tendon, introduce the knife flatwise, a little to one side of the tendon, till its point is nearly projecting at the other, then turn the edge on the tendon and cut inwards with a sawing motion till the tendon gives way with a distinct snap, and the foot can be completely flexed with ease.
Dr. Little[167] recommends that the tendon should be divided from before backwards. There is more risk by this method of wounding the skin, and thus losing the subcutaneous character of the operation.
Professor Pancoast[168] divides the inferior portion of the soleus muscle instead of the tendo Achillis.
2. Tibialis posticus.—Next in frequency and importance to that of the tendo Achillis, division of this tendon is much more difficult to perform. It may be performed either above or below the ankle.
(a.) Above the ankle.—The blade of a tenotomy knife should be entered perpendicularly at the posterior margin of the tibia, half an inch or an inch above the internal malleolus, so as to pass between the bone and the tendon of the tibialis posticus, the blade directed towards the latter; the assistant should now evert the foot, the operator pressing the blade against the tendon.[169]
(b.) Below the ankle, close to the attachment to the scaphoid. This is the better position of the two when the position of the tendon can be made out, which is not always the case, especially in cases of old standing.
Raising the skin just over the astragalo-scaphoid joint, the knife should be entered with its blade downwards, and across the tendon, and should be made to cut on the bone, while an assistant everts the foot till the tendon gives way with a distinct snap.
3. Tibialis anticus may in like manner be divided either just above the ankle, or at its insertion. When it requires division it can generally be made so prominent as to render its division comparatively easy.
4. Peronei.—These do not often require division, cases of talipes valgus being usually paralytic in character. If necessary they can be cut as they cross the fibula.
5. The plantar fascia, may require division; when this is the case, it is so prominent as to render the operation very easy, if conducted on the principles mentioned above.
CHAPTER XIV. OPERATIONS ON NERVES.Nerve-stretching.—Surgical literature in last ten years is full of cases in which nerves have been stretched for all manner of diseases with varying success: an example of the operative procedure may suffice:—
1. Stretching of the great sciatic either for sciatica, sclerosis, or locomotor ataxia.
Operation.—A line drawn from the centre of the space between the tuberosity of the ischium or the great trochanter to a corresponding point between the condyles of the femur will give the direction. A free incision in this line three or four inches in length—the nerve lies just below the the femoral aponeurosis, beneath the edge of gluteal fold, requiring no muscular fibres to be divided. It must be raised from its bed and boldly stretched or elongated into a loop. Symington's experiments have shown that in the average adult 130 lb. are required to break the nerve.
2. The facial has been stretched for spasm. The trunk is easily reached by an incision extending from near the external auditory meatus to the angle of the jaw, which enables the parotid to be pushed forward and the edge of the sterno-mastoid pulled backwards.
Neurotomy and Neurectomy.—Chiefly performed for neuralgia of the fifth nerve.
a. This is a very easy operation if directed at the terminal branches only of the nerve, where they make their exit from the frontal, supraorbital, and mental foramina. The author has done it in very numerous cases, and with great relief, if care be taken to destroy the nerve in the foramen to some extent—a sharp-pointed thermo-cautery does this easily and safely.
b. The more severe and radical operation of cutting out a portion of the trunk of the fifth nerve just after it has left the skull, and destroying Meckel's ganglion, has been done pretty frequently, chiefly by American surgeons—in various ways.
1. Carnochan's Operation.—Exposing the whole front wall of antrum, its cavity is opened into from the front by a large trephine. The lower wall of the infra-orbital canal is cut away by a chisel, the posterior wall of the antrum by a smaller trephine, the nerve thus isolated is traced up to and past Meckel's ganglion, which is removed close to the foramen rotundum by cutting the nerve by curved blunt-pointed scissors.
2. Pancoast's Operation.—Expose the coronoid process by a free incision, divide it at its root and throw it up, then expose and tie internal maxillary artery, after which the upper portion of the external pterygoid is to be detached from the sphenoid, thus exposing the nerve leaving foramen ovale; the second portion is deeper and not so easily got at.
3. The spinal accessory occasionally may be divided before it enters the sterno-mastoid in cases of spasmodic wry neck, with great advantage. This operation is an easy one; the sterno-mastoid edge being once fairly exposed, the nerve is easily seen, and a piece should be cut out at least half an inch in length.
Nerve Suture is occasionally practised with great advantage in cases where nerves have been divided either by
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