The Röntgen rays in medical work (1899) (14753751721)

Identifier: rntgenraysinmedi00wals (find matches)
Title: The Röntgen rays in medical work
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Walsh, David
Subjects: X-rays Radiography X-Rays Radiography
Publisher: London : Baillière, Tindall and Cox
Contributing Library: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School



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lvania.! I havenow under treatment, he writes, a young lad who accidentallyshot himself with a 22-calibre parlour rifle. The ball entered thewall of the right chest on the mid-axillary line in the sixthinterspace. The muzzle of the rifle was pointing upward. Thepatient complained bitterly of pain under the upper border ofthe right scapula. The history of the case and all the clinicalphenomena would have led to exploration in that region, but theradiograph shows the bullet in the lower lobe of the lung, on alevel with the tenth rib, and near the middle line of the body.The picture also shows in a convincing manner a pulmonaryarea (corresponding to the lower lobe) of increased opacity, andevidently the seat of blood-effusion and inflammation. Thepatient has all the clinical symptoms of a traumatic pneumonia. * There can be little doubt that the difficult decision between * British Medical Journal, October 22, 1898, p. 1243. t The American Journal of Medical Science, January, 1898, p. 4.
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MEDICAL AND SURGICAL APPLICATIONS 105 operative interference and expectancy in penetrating gunshotwounds of the thorax without wound of exit will be greatlyfacilitated in the future by the accurate localization of the bullet. In the oesophagus it is fairly easy to locate false teeth andother objects opaque to the rays. Thus, a London medicaljournal* commented on a case where the results of such anattempt, although negative, were nevertheless of an instructivenature. The facts were briefly as follows : A young ladyswallowed by accident a set of false teeth. She called in amedical man, who, failing to remove the impacted plate fromthe gullet, pushed it, or thought he pushed it, down into thestomach. Some time later she went to a hospital, complainingof pain in the abdomen, and that region was radiographed, butwithout result. Shortly afterwards she brought up a quantity ofblood, and was taken to another hospital, where she died whilean attempt was being made to radiograph the abdomen, to