A probationary essay on osteo-aneurism, or aneurism of the arterial capillaries of bone : submitted, by the authority of the President and his Council. to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ... / by P.D. Handyside.

  • Handyside, P. D. (Peter David), 1808-1881.
Date:
1833
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A probationary essay on osteo-aneurism, or aneurism of the arterial capillaries of bone : submitted, by the authority of the President and his Council. to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ... / by P.D. Handyside. 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.

    56/88 (page 48)
    George Bell, several years ago*. Mr S , set. twenty- two, took a good deal of exercise on horseback. The buckle of the stirrup-leather, on the right side of the saddle, was so placed that it exerted considerable pressure on the middle of the inside of the thigh. A good deal of local uneasiness, with swelling, was the result. The surgeon in the country prescribed leeches and various kinds of embrocations. These proved of no avail, for the swelling in the course of three months attained a great size. He came to town, and was seen in consultation by various practitioners; during a fort- night the swelling obviously increased. As the tumour oc- cupied the whole of the thigh, and exhibited no signs of di- minution, it was proposed to amputate the limb at the hip- joint. To this the patient gave a willing assent, but died suddenly three days after the operation was proposed to him, and on the very day it was to have taken place. On examining the thigh, it measured thirty-nine inches in circumference. The tumour was hai-d in some places, and in others communicated that peculiar crackling feeling so well described by Breschet. It could not be divided by a knife, and much difficulty was experienced from its hardness in making a section of it by means of a saw. The parietes of the femur, covered by the periosteum, were ex- panded ; and the internal structure of the tumour consisted of an immense number of cells, which were lined by a mem- brane, and were filled with florid arterial blood; one cell contained upwards of a pint of blood. Mr Benjamin Bell j- relates a case of this disease, which occurred to his father Mr George Bell, in the year 1823. The patient was a lady about sixty years of age, who, for several years, had suffered from what she imagined to be • See Bell's Treatise on the Bones, (already quoted) p. ICl. f Idem Liber, p. 157.