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The First Lines of the Theory and Practice of Surgery
The First Lines of the Theory and Practice of Surgery Author:Samuel Cooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: eoing, a loosened state of their textures, more particularly in the situation where the pus is first produced, or about the centre of the inflammation. Perhaps a... more » portion of the softened textures may sometimes be blended with the matter; but then it would only be an accidental addition, and not by any means a constant and essential occurrence in the process of suppuration. A few years ago, there was a girl in St. Bartholomew's Hospital for an abscesS of the hip. An opening having been made, a mixture of well-formed pus and of an oily fluid was discharged, followed by a considerable lump of adipode substance. Here, no doubt, the fatty matter was only an accidental addition, and not mixed with the purulent matter, as an essential part of it. The matter, discharged from some abscesses of the liver, is remarked to have a brownish color, and hence the suspicion, that portions of that organ may be dissolved and blended with the pus; but whether this is the fact, or whether the matter may derive its peculiar color from the bile, are points not at present determined. The following is Dr. Macartney's view of this part of the subject. "In some abscesses (he observes), as those of the liver, spleen, and brain, we sometimes see with the naked eye the lacerated vessels; and, in the first, I have observed the biliary vessels also to be broken, and the bile mixed with the blood, contained in the cavity of the abscess." (Op. cit. p. 24.) Although there is no texture (if the cuticle, the nails, and the hair be excepted) which does not occasionally become inflamed, yet an abscess, strictly so named cannot form in every tissue. For instance, it cannot take place in the dense fabric of fibrous and cartilaginous textures, nor in that of serous membranes. When pus is formed by these tissues, it is...« less