A Manual of the Operations of Surgery: For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior PractitionersBell, Joseph
Science
A Manual of the Operations of Surgery: For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners
Bell, Joseph
Surgery, Operative
Another, but not so good method of making an external flap, is the
following:--(_a._) For the right arm.--The patient lying well over
on his left side, the surgeon stands to the inside of the arm to be
removed. Seizing the deltoid in the left, with the right he passes
an amputating knife, seven or eight inches in length, from a point
a little nearer the clavicle than the middle space between the
acromion and coracoid processes; then, transfixing the base of the
deltoid, and just grazing the posterior surface of the humerus,
thrusts the knife downwards and backwards till it protrudes at the
posterior margin of the axilla. When doing this, it is important
that the arm be held outwards and backwards, and even upwards, as
far as possible to relax the deltoid; without this it will be
impossible to make the flap of the full size. The flap must then be
cut of as full length as can be obtained, four or five inches at
least. An assistant then holds it upwards, while the surgeon, or
(if the arm is very muscular) another assistant, brings the arm
forwards well across the patient's chest, thus exposing the
posterior aspect of the joint. This may have very possibly been
already opened during the transfixion; the attachments of muscles
must now be divided, the knife passed behind the head of the bone,
which is dislocated forwards, and a suitable flap of the tissues in
front cut from within outwards. The assistant is to follow the
knife with his finger and compress the vessels.
(_b._) If the left shoulder is to be amputated, the patient lying
on his right side, the surgeon stands behind him, and raising the
elbow of the limb to be removed from the side, and pulling it
slightly backwards, enters the knife at the posterior fold of the
axilla (Plate II. fig. 2), and passing the posterior aspect of the
head of the humerus, endeavours to protrude it as near the acromion
as possible; the flaps must be cut and the rest of the operation
performed in the manner we have just described for the other arm.
#3.# Where the destruction of tissue has been chiefly below the joint, a
very good flap may be obtained from above, composed chiefly of the
deltoid muscle, and the skin over it. This may be made by transfixion at
its base, but is better obtained by dissection from without.
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