Section on Surgery - 1902 Author:American Medical Association 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: THE INOPERABLE NATURE OF THE PULMONARY TUBERCULAR LESION. HORACE J. WHITACRE, M.D. CINCINNATI, OHIO. In no department of surgery have the advances of th... more »e past few years been more signal than in that which pertains to the surgery of the chest. Conditions which, as recently as ten years ago. were considered to be irremediable by any method of treatment or were, perhaps, classed among the hopeless medical cases, have now been transferred to the domains of surgery and surprisingly good results have been obtained. The pericardium and the heart have been invaded; the mediastinum has been employed as an avenue of approach; lesions of the pleura that have previously been considered as hopeless have been brought within the pale and the surgery of the lung has become established on a firm scientific basis. Perhaps the most fascinating part of chest surgery is that which concerns the lung, since it is here that best results have been obtained. Acute simple abscess of the lung and acute abscess following acute gangrene of the lung may now be treated medically for from four to six weeks. Then should the healing process fail to progress favorably, it is the opinion of the best observers that this case becomes surgical and that the cavity should be drained from outside. Such operative treatment has resulted in the recovery of 90 per cent, of simple abscesses and 61 per cent, of acute gangrene abscesses, while a small percentage in each are improved. The operative treatment of abscess followingthe lodgment of a foreign body has been somewhat less successful but is an imperative operation. The operation for chronic abscess of the lung has not thus far yielded good results, yet the results following chronic lung gangrene abscesses are very encouraging. The treatment of empyema has been ...« less