Bismuth paste in chronic suppurations : its diagnostic importance and therapeutic value / by Emil G. Beck ... with an introduction by Carl Beck, M. D., and a chapter on the application of bismuth paste in the treatment of chronic suppuration of the nasal accessory sinuses and the ear, by Joseph C. Beck, M. D. With eighty-one engravings, nine diagrammatic illustrations, and a colored plate.

  • Beck, Emil G., 1866-1932.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bismuth paste in chronic suppurations : its diagnostic importance and therapeutic value / by Emil G. Beck ... with an introduction by Carl Beck, M. D., and a chapter on the application of bismuth paste in the treatment of chronic suppuration of the nasal accessory sinuses and the ear, by Joseph C. Beck, M. D. With eighty-one engravings, nine diagrammatic illustrations, and a colored plate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    enough within them to permit the taking of a radiograph of the injected region. The radiograph thus produced will furnish a true picture of the condition existing with- in the diseased region. It will outline with perfect clear- ness the boundaries and ramifications of the sinuses, and in many instances will trace the path to the original focus of the disease. Stereoscopic radiographs, which are obtained by tak- ing two pictures of the same region from two different angles, and then fusing this pair of radiographs into one by means of a pair of prisms, are of the utmost value in establishing a correct anatomical diagnosis. They bring before one's eyes a picture in which all structures stand out in plastic effect, so that their relation to one another is easily estimated. We are then able to tell whether the injected paste runs in front of, behind, or through a bone. It is well known that bismuth will produce a shadow on a sensitized plate when placed in the path of the x-ray. This principle was taken advantage of in tracing sinuses for anatomical diagnosis when, in March, 1906, my brother, Dr. Carl Beck, of Chicago, injected a sinus fol- lowing spondylitis, illustrated in Fig. 2. A. D., a girl, aged 4, was brought to the North Chicago Hospital in March, 1906, with a discharging sinus in Scarpa's triangle. History: spondylitis with psoas abscess at the age of 2 years, which ruptured spontaneously and persisted in discharging pus for two years, thus re- quiring daily dressing. The sinus was injected March, 1906, with bis- muth paste and a radiograph taken. This picture (Fig. 2) clearly shows the sinus tract leading from the opening in Scarpa's triangle to the tuberculous focus, in the second and third lumbar vertebra?. At this point the paste fills out a space about three-fourths of an inch long and one and one-quarter inches wide. A small cavity leads to the other side of the spine, indicating that there existed a tendency to the forma- tion of a double psoas abscess. This case is instructive not only from the diagnostic standpoint, but from the therapeutic as well. A few days later the parents informed us that the sinus had for