Observations on wounds, and their complications by erysipelas, gangrene and tetanus : and on the principal diseases and injuries of the head, ear and eye / by the Baron D.J. Larrey ; tr. from the French by E.F. Rivinus.

  • Larrey, D. J. (Dominique Jean), baron, 1766-1842.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on wounds, and their complications by erysipelas, gangrene and tetanus : and on the principal diseases and injuries of the head, ear and eye / by the Baron D.J. Larrey ; tr. from the French by E.F. Rivinus. 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.

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    symptoms which accompany it, or upon some other complaint with which the patient has been seized, as erysipelas, phleg- mon, &c. When the whole or a part of the substance, which produced the solution of continuity, has remained in the flesh, it consti- tutes a complication, known by the name of foreign bodies. Now> in as much as the presence alone of such foreign bodies may develope all the symptoms above alluded to, it is highly necessary to extract them immediately, lest the means which may be requisite for the accomplishment of this object are pro- ductive of greater injury to the patient, than the retention in the parts of these foreign bodies themselves. We do not, at present, mean to dwell upon these different complications, because we shall have occasion to speak of them more at large in the account which we propose to give of gun-shot wounds. For the present, we will continue our remarks on the solu- tions of continuity, called after the causes which inflict them; and these are punctured wounds, lacerated wounds, and Wounds produced by the bites of rabid, or venomous animals* Punctured Wounds. Punctures being the effect of the action of a more or less pointed instrument, differ as to the nature of the instrument which has caused them, and as to the parts which have been injured. They are mostly attended by a higher or lesser de- gree of local irritation and inflammation, and sometimes by ex-^ tremely serious nervous symptoms,* of which we shall have> hereafter, occasion to speak, in the article on stings of certain insects and venomous serpents. Wounds of this nature require the enlargement of the injured parts, the absorption of the effused fluids, a proper degree of compression, and the anti- phlogistic regimen. The enlargement being made, according to circumstances, cupping-glasses may be applied over these wounds with great advantage, the effects of which may be in- • Free from this objection, however, are the punctures made by those very fine acupuDcturation needles, which are made to pass readily and without paiia through the sheaths of the muscular tissue.