Observations on the surgical pathology of the larynx and trachea, chiefly with a view to illustrate the affections of those organs which may require the operation of bronchotomy : including remarks on croup, cynanche laryngea, injuries by swallowing acids and boiling water, foreign bodies in the windpipe, asphyxia, wounds, etc. / William Henry Porter.

  • Porter, William Henry, 1790-1861.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the surgical pathology of the larynx and trachea, chiefly with a view to illustrate the affections of those organs which may require the operation of bronchotomy : including remarks on croup, cynanche laryngea, injuries by swallowing acids and boiling water, foreign bodies in the windpipe, asphyxia, wounds, etc. / William Henry Porter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    infliction of a little additional pain is but of trivial consequence when weighed against even a feeble hope of recovery; and in the event of a patient's death it often affords the melancholy con- solation that every possible effort had been made to save him; but still those operations which depend upon chance are not such as the surgeon who values his reputation would wish either to advise or to perform. A man should endeavour to make himself acquainted with the effects of disease: he should know the symptoms that mark its progress, and be able to say when the knife of the operator may be used with advantage, and when it should be laid aside for ever. He should be fami- liar with those new formations and organic changes of structure, that, being hopeless and incurable, ought not to be interfered with; and, taking nature as his guide, he should as firmly de- cline an operation when he thinks it likely to prove unsuccess- ful, as he should press its performance under more favourable circumstances. Perhaps there is no class of diseases involved in greater obscurity, or presenting greater difficulty to the practitioner, than those affecting the Larynx and Trachea. The functions of these organs are few and simple. They serve to transmit the air in the acts of inspiration and expiration, and in them the voice is formed and its tones modulated: the symptoms, there- fore, derivable from an interruption or imperfect performance of these functions can be only hoarseness, a loss of voice, and re- spiration more or less impeded. But every practitioner knows how inadequate these circumstances would be to the formation of a diagnosis between the diseases of the respiratory tube. A man of experience may distinguish between the sibilous breath- ing that attends laryngeal obstructions, and the raucal sob so frequently met with in severe bronchial inflammations; he may n 2