The ninth annual report of the Chinese Hospital, at Shanghae, from January 1st, to December 31st, 1855 / by the Committee.

  • Chinese Hospital (Shanghai)
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ninth annual report of the Chinese Hospital, at Shanghae, from January 1st, to December 31st, 1855 / by the Committee. 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.

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    t) agony; chloroform and other remediesiwere tried, but without effect; and after remaining some time, he requested his friends to take him on board ship, where he probably did not survive many hours, for he was rapidly approaching the last stage of suffocation. It was hard to see the poor man enduring the torture he suffered, without the possibility of affording him any relief. He begged again and again, that he might be killed at once^g he even went on his knees to beseech that his throat might be cut, and thus an end be put to his sufferings. Two cases of trismus or lock-jaw, occurred some time since in the wards. One was in a soldier, whose hand had been lacerated by a splinter of wood while in action ; the hand was much tom, and a piece of wood had been lodged between the metacarpal bones for several days before he came for aid; his jaw was becoming stiff, and he had pain in the back of the neck and dilficulty of swallowing. The piece of wood was removed, and the wound dressed, whilst large quantities of opium were given to him; but he gradually got worse, and died in much suffering. The other case was in a man employed on a cargo boat; a heavy beam of timber had fallen on his leg, producing compound fracture of the ancle, and much laceration of the foot. Immediate amputation was recommended, but he would not consent to it; the ancle was re- placed, and the wounds dressed, but “extensive sloughing came on, followed in a few days by lock-jaw, under which he speedily sank and died. A case occurred of an old man, who was engaged in building a house, when part of the frame of the house fell upon him, produc- ing fracture of the bones of the pelvis and neck of the femur, with ruptui'e of the urethra. This man’s friends were particularly kind, and attentive to him during his sufferings, but he died in a few days from infiltration of urine, through the injury done to the urethra. About the same time, a boy was injured by a fall from some scaffolding, producing as was supposed rupture of the liver, of which he speedily died. In August last, a respectable man, who had just opened a money shop, was returning home one evening, accompanying a servant who was carrying some money, when he was attacked in one of the streets of the foreign settlement by a party of thieves, and in