A contribution to the surgical pathology of sero-sanguineous cysts in the neck and axilla / by John Birkett.

  • Birkett, John, 1815-1904.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contribution to the surgical pathology of sero-sanguineous cysts in the neck and axilla / by John Birkett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    neck” by some authors, “ Sero-cystic disease '' by others, and Hygromata by foreign pathologists. The first recorded case which I have been able to find was published by Damen at the Hague, in 1780. The illustration accompanying it is interesting in relation to one I shall describe, and which is doubtless a repetition of it at the early stage. J. P. Maunoir was the next surgeon who called attention to these cases, under the name of cc Hydrocele of the neck;” since then German, French, and English surgeons have, from time to time, added to our knowledge of this disease under various designations. Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Csesar Hawkins have contributed to the f Transactions' of this Society, cases which they have observed ; but in consequence, probably, of the rarity of the disease, little knowledge has since been acquired. Some cases were published by myself in f Guy's Hospital Reports' for 1860; Mr. Holmes described some in f The Lancet,' in 1864; and Mr. Thomas Smith, in 1866, recorded some cases of congenital cysts cured by the introduction of a single thread seton. The only complete monograph on this disease was published at Berlin in 1855, by Hr. E. Gurlt, who, with true German erudition, has quoted a large number of cases (f Uber die Cystengeschwiilste des Halses,' Berlin, 1855). The following examples occurred in my own practice, and, with the exception of the early history of Case 3, have never been published. Case 1.—In April, 1862, a healthy, temperate man, set. 28, was admitted into Guy's Hospital under my care. He was a native of Pembrokeshire, and by trade a joiner. Five or six years before, when about twenty-two years old, he accidentally felt a small lump in the right axilla, which, during its slow growth, had never caused pain. In that region there was a very moveable tumour which glided away from direct pressure, and could only be distinctly seen when fixed by compressing the surrounding structures