An operation for the radical cure of stricture of the lachrymal duct : with description of a stricturotome / by Charles Hermon Thomas.

  • Thomas, Charles Hermon.
Date:
[1911]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An operation for the radical cure of stricture of the lachrymal duct : with description of a stricturotome / by Charles Hermon Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    correct in principle. But I believed that the instrument which he proposed was not altogether well adapted to the purpose for which it was intended. In the first place, the knife, being short, straight and rigid, is not readily applicable to the bony canal, entrance to which, more- over, is more or less impeded by the overhanging brow —an obstacle which all who have attempted to pass a straight Bowman's probe have doubtless encountered. Then the rounded cutting point and tapering blade— broadest where it joins the shank—make an instrument which one might naturally shrink from introducing into such a passage. To meet these apparent objections, I devised an instrument which was made for me by J. H. Gemrig & Son, in August, 1869, and which has been subjected to the test of use in my own hands, and some others, during the more than twenty-two years which have followed. The results have been so wholly satisfactory as to lead me to welcome the invitation to present the subject here, especially as I have delayed publishing any account of it till now. The instrument consists, besides the handle, of shank, blade, and tip. Its length, exclusive of the handle, is 5^ cm. The shank is of untempered steel, to give it GEMRIG Sc SON PHILA. flexibility, and 4 cm. in length. The flexibility of the shank is such as to permit the instrument to be bent into any curve found convenient for introduction into the canal; thus forming a probe, dilator, and knife combined. The cutting blade is 7 mm. in length and 3 mm. in width, the whole terminating in a conical tip, blunt at the point, and equal to the blade in length. The conical tip serves at once as a guide and a