✨ Medical Report Continuation
On the 25th April last I admitted into the Hospital an unmarried female, aged 33, the subject of psoas abscess, originating, I believe, in the soft parts, as there was no symptom, except the abscess itself, of disease of the spine. The abscess had spontaneously opened in the left groin, some time before admission, when she was much emaciated and suffered from hectic for weeks. It is sad to know that if this new mode of treatment had been known to the profession, this poor girl would in all probability have long since been restored to health.
Mr Lister has found that even psoas and lumbar abscesses, depending on caries of the vertebrae, form no exception to the rule, and that “dead bone, when no longer labouring as heretofore under the irritation of decomposing matter, ceases to be an opprobrium of surgery, and recovers like other inflammatory affections.”
I have used carbolic acid in other surgical affections of less importance than those described, and with a success, if less striking, but from what has already been said, it must be evident that its application to foul ulcers and incised wounds, &c., must be merely a matter of detail. As a remedy for burns of the first and second degree, I have found it act almost like a charm. A solution of one part of the acid to six parts of olive oil being applied to a burned surface covered with vesicles and bullae, all pain disappears in a quarter of an hour, and the blistered surface heals in from three to four days, without the formation of a single drop of pus.
To surgeons engaged in hospital practice, there is another advantage in the use of carbolic acid which it is impossible to estimate too highly,—I mean the doing away with those fearful pests of the surgical ward, pyaemia, hospital gangrene, and erysipelas.
I have taken a great interest in this subject, and have investigated the matter as far as the limited means at my disposal would allow, which as yet is not far; but I trust my humble efforts will have the effect of ensuring it a trial at the hands of my professional brethren in this and the neighbouring colonies, whose good fortune it is to have a larger field for their labours. As for myself, if I succeed in hastening its adoption by the profession here, I shall have reason to be gratified.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Id.) J. RUTHERFORD RYLEY,
M.R.C.S.E.,
Surgeon-Superintendent of the Hospital,
and Surgeon to the Gaol and Lunatic Asylum, County of Westland, New Zealand.
Hokitika, 4th March, 1868.
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Westland Provincial Gazette 1868, No 3
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
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Report on Use of Carbolic Acid in Surgical Cases
(continued from previous page)
🏥 Health & Social Welfare4 March 1868
Medical report, Carbolic acid, Surgical treatment, Antiseptic principle, Lister's method, Psoas abscess, Burns treatment
- J. Rutherford Ryley, M.R.C.S.E., Surgeon-Superintendent of the Hospital, and Surgeon to the Gaol and Lunatic Asylum, County of Westland, New Zealand