Observations on the surgical anatomy of the head and neck : illustrated by cases and engravings / by Allan Burns.

  • Burns, Allan, 1781-1813.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the surgical anatomy of the head and neck : illustrated by cases and engravings / by Allan Burns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    484/546 (page 456)
    Note C.—p. 195. Mr. Burns is not singular in giving an exagger- ated account of the dangers and difficulties attend- ant on the operation of tying the carotid artery. His never having had an opportunity of passing a ligature around that vessel on the living subject, and his views in relation to it having been wholly derived from speculation, and the descriptions of the operations published by those who had per- formed them, offer for him a sufficient apology. As I am persuaded that nothing tends more to retard the advancement of surgery, than the exag- geration of difficulties, which, if they do exist, are easily surmounted, I consider it my duty, so far as my own experience will enable me, to assist in their removal. One of the difficulties which has been particu- larly insisted upon, by most of those who have tied the carotid artery, is the alternate swell and collapse of the internal jugular vein. During inspiration it falls collapse, hut during expira- tion it swells out full and tense, covering al- most completely the artery. The transitions from emptiness to fullness are so rapid, that sufficient time is not allowed to detach it from the carotid. So powerful an impression did this and similar overcharged descriptions of the state of the vein, in relation to the artery,