Practical observations on the radical cure of inguinal hernia / by C. Holthouse.

  • Holthouse, C. (Carsten), 1810-1901.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the radical cure of inguinal hernia / by C. Holthouse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    success of the operation or the safety of the pa¬ tient. Theoretically speaking, one would say that the chances of cure are better but the danger greater when the sac is pierced than otherwise, yet practically this is not found to be the case, and from all the evidence I have been able to collect on this subject, I have arrived at the conclusion that it is of little consequence either way. In a child affected with congenital hernia on whom I operated, the peritoneum must necessarily have been pierced, yet no untoward symptom took place, and he suffered so little from the operation that he was with difficulty kept in his bed. The principal danger which is apprehended from piercing the sac is peritonitis; yet it curiously happens that in all the recorded cases of death from this operation not one resulted from peritoneal inflammation. I think, therefore, we are justified in dismissing from further consideration this ques¬ tion of wounding the sac. To return to the subject—the mode in which these several operations effect a cure. There can be no doubt that in Wiitzer’s operation, it is some¬ times effected by the union of the invaginated plug with the wralls of the inguinal canal, as proved by the following dissection related by Mr. Spencer Wells in the Dublin Quarterly Journal of May 1858. The subject was a young man twenty years of age, who had been operated on by Rothmund a short time previous to his death, which took place from some cause altogether independent of the operation.