The after-treatment of operations : a manual for practitioners and house surgeons / by P. Lockhart Mummery.

  • Lockhart-Mummery, John Percy, 1875-
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The after-treatment of operations : a manual for practitioners and house surgeons / by P. Lockhart Mummery. 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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    insomnia; of these trional is one of the best, and should be given in 20-grain doses ; it is often rendered more effective if administered with a little whisky and hot water. Paraldehyde is a very effective drug, but owing to its unpleasant property of making the patient's breath smell it often cannot be used; it should be administered in peppermint water with some syrup to disguise the taste: ]^ Paraldehyde - - - - 5i.ss. Tinct. aurantii - - - - 5ii- Aquas menth. pip. - - - - gi-SS. It is always better to avoid the use of sleeping-draughts if possible, and they should never be made use of as a routine practice. Pain after Operations. A certain amount of pain after an operation is common, and may be due to a variety of different causes, such as tightly tied sutures, tight packing with gauze, powerful antiseptics in contact with exposed nerve-endings, etc. In an ideal operation on a healthy subject there should be no pain afterwards, and after many operations, where healthy tissues have been cleanly cut, there is no pain. Unfortunately, a certain amount of pain is the rule after most operations, and it ought to be our object to prevent, or at least ameliorate, this as far as possible. There is probably nothing which will make patients more grateful or bring the surgeon more credit than the relief of pain after an operation; and if patients find that they can undergo operations without suffering pain, much will have been done in making operations less dreaded by the general public than they are at present. Pain is due to the stimulation of nerve-tissue, and more