Historical notices on the occurance of inflammatory affections of the internal organs after external injuries and surgical operations / by William Thomson, M.D.

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical notices on the occurance of inflammatory affections of the internal organs after external injuries and surgical operations / by William Thomson, M.D. 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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    I.—Inflammatory Affections of the Liver in cases of Injury of the Head. Even at so early a period of modern surgery as in the time of Ambrose Pare, (whose works were first published in 1561,) the oc- currence of abscesses of the liver in cases of injuries of the head had attracted the observation of surgeons. It is, Pare remarks, to be observed, that abscess of the liver is frequently excited in cases of wounds of the cranium,—an occurrence which has lately been observed by myself, by Robert Greaume, Rector of the Medical Faculty of Paris, and by Binosque, a licensed surgeon, in three in- stances. ((Euvres, Lib. x., Cap. xii., p. 229, edit. Lyons, folio, 1652.) Pare particularly insists upon the fact, that the individuals who were the subjects of these observations were in perfect health previously to the reception of the injury of the head. Et si tu m'objectes, says he, que telle aposteme estoitja concretee auparau- ant le coup donne ; je respons que les patiens, auparauant estre blessez, auoient une viue et naturelle couleur sans aucun signe d'estre hepatiques, et estoient bien habituez, faisans toutes leurs operations, ce que tu pourras voir par experience y prenant garde comme i'ay fait. Since the times of Pare, the connection between injuries of the head and abscesses of the liver has been pointed out by a number of surgeons. Pierre Pigray, the pupil of Pare, whose Chirurgia was published at Paris in 1609, says, (in the ninth chapter of the fourth book,) that he has seen many persons who had been wounded on the head die without the occurrence of any alarming symptoms, particularly when fever occurred on the third day; and that, in almost all these fatal cases, he has found an abscess in the substance of the liver (p. 368-9). {Epitome des Preceptes de Medecine et Chirurgie, Rouen, 1658.) Ballonius, in the appendix to his Treatise on Convulsions, (the Approbatio of which is dated 1638—Opera, Vol i., p. 368,) says, that he has heard that many surgeons have observed abscesses in the concave part of the livers of individuals dying in consequence of severe injuries of the head, but as to the truth of this he cannot himself offer any judgment. Schenckius, in his Exercitationes Anatomicce, (published in 4to. at Jena, 1652, p. 177,) states, that Virsungus had found from the examination of many bodies, that abscess of the liver is very liable to occur in individuals who have received severe wounds of the head, particularly of the temporal muscle. Petrus de Marchettis, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at Padua, mentions in his work entitled Observationum Medico* Chirurgicarum rariorum SyJloge (p. 35, edit. Amsterdam, 1665,) that he had frequently demonstrated both in the anatomical theatre, and in the Hospital of St. Francis, large collections of pus in the