Observations on the Diseases of SeamenBlane, Gilbert, Sir
History
Observations on the Diseases of Seamen
Blane, Gilbert, Sir
Medicine, Naval -- Early Works To 1800; Sailors -- Diseases
The next was a seaman of thirty years of age, belonging to the
Magnificent, who had the _humerus_ broken and shattered by a splinter
which entered the deltoid muscle. Several large portions of bone were
extracted, and the artery was laid bare on the inside. On the fifth day
there came on a large ichorous discharge, with a low quick pulse and
depressed spirits, and the jaws began to close, with pain and stricture
on both sides about the articulation of the lower jaw. He had every day
since the accident taken half an ounce of Peruvian bark, combined with
opium or rhubarb, according as it made him loose or costive. This was
continued, and the part externally was kept constantly moist all round
with volatile liniment, to which a fourth part of _tinctura thebaica_
was added. Next day the jaw was almost entirely fixed, so that it was
with difficulty that a little wine and water could be introduced with a
spoon. Mr. Harris, the surgeon, now wisely determining to do something
vigorous in this unpromising situation, beat up twelve ounces of opium
moistened to the consistence of a cataplasm with the thebaic tincture,
and applied one half to each side of the jaw. The patient this day
swallowed a pint of the bark decoction with half an ounce of nitre, and
took a diaphoretic draught of twenty drops of thebaic tincture and
thirty of antimonial wine. He had also the smoke of tobacco thrown up
his nostrils.
On the third day after the attack he could open his mouth half an
inch. The cataplasms were taken off, beat up afresh with the tincture,
and applied anew. The bark and other medicines were continued. On the
fourth day the stricture and pain of the jaw went entirely off, but the
cataplasm and volatile liniment were applied for three days longer. The
wound produced a laudable discharge, every symptom became favourable,
and he continued to recover.
The only other person who recovered from this symptom was a man in the
Bedford. Several died of it on board of this ship; and as the same
means of relief were skilfully employed in all the cases by Mr. Wickes,
the surgeon, the success seemed owing more to something favourable in
the man’s constitution, than any thing peculiar in the treatment, which
consisted in the administration of the warm bath, opium and camphor,
with mercurial friction on the jaw.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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