Observations on the Principal Diseases of the Rectum and Anus; Particularly Stricture of the Rectum, the Haemorrhoidal Excrescence, and Fistula in Ano (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1814 Excerpt: ...should live very sparingly, and cloths dipped in goulard and water, or laudanum and water, should be applied when the pain or inflammation require it. In two or three days, if the bowels have not acted spontaneously, some mild aperient should be given. In about five or six days the ligature comes off, and shortly afterwards the part will heal, and cease to come down, or come down only in a much less degree than before the operation. Such has been the treatment, and such the issue of very many cases which have fallen to my eare within these few years, some of which I shall relate more in detail. But there are many circumstances and conditions of health which forbid this operation. If the disease be attended with great purulent discharge, which would lead us to suspect ulceration of some other part of the gut; if there be any affection of the bladder or prostate gland; if the health of the patient be otherwise bad; in short, in this, as in every other surgical operation, much must be left to the judgment of the surgeon on the individual case. But I may just remark, that the abraded state of the membrane, so often seen in the prolapsus ani of long standing, is not, I believe, a material objection to the operation; on the contrary, there are many points of analogy with other parts of similar structure, having undergone the same change, which would lead one to think more favourably of these cases. SECTION VII. ON THE FISTULA IN ANO. The writings of the older surgeons, and the rude and even barbarous operation for the fistula in ano, which is described in them, have not yet ceased to operate on the minds of those who are afflicted with this disease. Although it is now, principally by the labour of Mr. Pott, become a very simple operation, it occasions more dread ...