Appendicitis and its surgical treatment : with a report of seventy-five operated cases / by Herman Mynter.

  • Mynter, Herman, 1845-1903.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Appendicitis and its surgical treatment : with a report of seventy-five operated cases / by Herman Mynter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    pare at all favorably with the results obtained by Ameri- can Burgeons in this class of cast -. Diffuse peritonitis was present in thirty-eight eases, in four of which the peritonitis Was localized at first, and the mortality was twenty-seven,—/.<., Beventy-seven per cent.; seven had had previous attacks, of which tour died. Taking all his cases together in which there was formation of pus, localized or diffused, we find a mortality of thirty-seven in Beventy-four cases,—Le., titty per cent.; and we may, perhaps, take Hawkins at his word and consider this the result of allowing the disease to take its natural course. While he i> conservative in the acute and perforative eases, in spite <•(' his eonelusious, he is in favor of excising the appendix in the quiescent period, and considers it a better method than excision during the first attack, although acknowledging the dif- ficulty in arriving at a definite practice, as no man by any known symptom can prophesy a- to the occurrence of future attacks. It may he accepted, he states, that the «»ild> against a subsequent attack arc as three to one (Fit/. Bays five to two), and the ^<\i\~ against its terminating fatally as seven to one. He thinks it, therefore, the duty of tin- physician to advise the removal of the appendix after the first attack, on the ground of preventing the slight loss of life and the immense waste of time that is associated with a recurrence of attacks.1 It i> rather discouraging, after the clear and compre- hensive pathological exposition in the works i>( Kelynack and Hawkins, to turn to the addresses in medicine and Burgery at the recent meeting of the British Medical Association, at Carlisle, duly •>. lv.tr,.- Sir l>\ve iMnk- 1 i, c. oil. !•- i 3 Briti.-li Medio*] Journal, August 1. 1896, pp. '-