A case of amputation at the shoulder-joint / by E.R. Peaslee.

  • Peaslee, E. R. (Edmund Randolph), 1814-1878.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of amputation at the shoulder-joint / by E.R. Peaslee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ger of different operations, or the absolute danger of any particu- lar one, we must confine our observations to the same hospital or at least to those in which the same general method, both of ope- ration and of after treatment, isadopted. It is well known that all serious operations arc less successful in the French than in the English hospitals; the after treatment, in my own opinion, ac- counting mainly for the difference. Consequently, wc find* that in France 72§ per cent, die after amputation at the shoulder- joint; in this country 53^ per cent.; and in Great Britain only 39T\ per cent. This would make it appear a more dangerous operation than amputation of the thigh, and far more so than amputation of the arm. But on the other hand, it appears! that in Paris alone, 50 per cent, only of the amputations of the shoulder-joint prove fatal; just the same proportion of amputations of the arm,—and only 20 per cent, of amputations of the thigh being so—making the last far the least hazardous of the three operations, and the other two equally dangerous. But the favorable must also be distinguished from the un- favorable eases, even in the same Hospital. The second series of reports of cases in the New-York Hospital (p. 15), makes the percentage of deaths, after this operation, nearly twice as great as the first does, and thai of death after amputation of the thigh, more than two and a hi if times as great; while, according to the first series, amputation at the shoulder, and according to the ad, amputation of the thigh, is the most fatal of the three. Until, therefore, the cases favorable for the amputation are distinguished from those not so, and, having done this, we compare the results of this amputation with those of the other two in the same hospital, or hospitals similarly conducted so far as the after treatment is concerned—statistics in regard to the absolute or the comparative danger of this operation can- not be relied upon. Xo reason is apparent on general grounds why this opera- tion should be essentially more dangerous than amputation of the arm near the joint, and I should consider it altogether less dangerous than amputation of the thigh. If it be said that there is greater danger of secondary hemorrhage in case of ;i Page 13, of the paper alluded to. f pan.e Jg