Application Of Poultices Research Articles

Fortnightly Review: The treatment of gall stones

#### Summary points Alexander of Tralles (525-605), a physician of the Byzantine Empire, left the earliest known writings on gall stones, describing calculi in human livers.1 Our oldest physical evidence of human gall stones--30 stones in the intact gall bladder of a mummified Egyptian priestess from around 1500 BC2--was lost when the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London was bombed during the second world war. A multiplicity of non-surgical treatments have been used, including prayer, magic, the application of poultices and pigeons, phlebotomy, ingestion of herbs and potions, and attempts at gall stone dissolution. Most would now fall outside those approved by the mianstream of modern medicine. Francis Glisson (1597-1677) described the capsule of the liver but also experimented with dietary remedies for his own gall stones. Orgardney described in vitro dissolution of gall stones with turpentine but refrained from trying it in patients. Gall stone dissolution, though now much more effective than it was, is still associated with high failure and recurrence rates and is used in only a small proportion of cases. The history of surgery for gall stones is fairly short. Cholecystotomy was reported and recommended by Jean-Louis Petit in 1743 after he had mistakenly opened the gall bladder when attempting to drain what he thought was an abdominal wall abscess.3 Adhesions between the gall bladder and the abdominal wall prevented leakage …

REPORT OF TWO CASES OF SUPPURATING MASTOIDITIS.

In presenting the following cases of mastoid disease, it is with the object of demonstrating the evil results that are liable to follow acute suppurations of the middle ear, especially when treated with the indiscriminate application of poultices, and the injudicious use of the Politzer air bag. In spite of the advances that have been made within recent years in the treatment of these affections, and the serious results that are almost sure to follow when these cases are badly treated, we still find physicians using the poultice to cause an abscess of the mastoid region to break externally. It has been my misfortune to have had several of these badly managed cases to treat, the histories of two of which are herewith subjoined. I think they are good object lessons and may be a warning to some physicians not to allow their cases to go to the verge of