Transactions of the Section on Surgery and Anatomy of the American Medical Association at the Annual Meeting Volume 58 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... THE PARAFFIN INJECTION TEEATMENT OF INGUINAL HEENIA. M. L. HARRIS, M.D. CHICAGO. It is more than fifty years since attempts were first made to cure ordinary rupture or inguinal hern'a by injecting some irritating fluid into the sac or into the tissues surrounding the neck of the sac. The method was originally introduced by the regular profession, but it did not take long to demonstrate not only that it was unsuccessful in the majority of cases in so far as effecting a cure was concerned, but also that it was not so free from risk as was at first supposed. While the materials composing the injecting fluids have varied somewhat, according to the fancy of the particular operator, the effect of them all is practically the same, namely, to excite an inflammatory exudate which is expected to block the hernial opening and thus to prevent the descent of the hernia. As new-formed connective tissue thus excited by means of local irritants is not entirely permanent but usually readily yields to pressure, the results following this treatment are so transitory and so unsatisfactory as not to warrant a continuance of the method by the regular profession. However, the simplicity of the method and the fact that it can be performed without the use of a knife and without laying the patient up, made it popular with the advertising and itinerant charlatan, whose thoughts are more centered on the fleecing of his victim than on the cure of the hernia. As a result surgeons are almost continually called on to operate on patients with hernias who hut a short time before were unsuccessfully treated by the injection method. About seven years ago Gersuny introduced the injection of paraffin into the tissues for a variety of purposes, one of which was the cure of...