EVISCERATION.
It will be five years in September since Prof. Alf. Graefe, of Halle, delivered his address before the Society of Naturalists and Physicians at Madgeburg in which he described the operation of exenteration or evisceration, and asserted the advantages that it possessed (except in malignant diseases) over enucleation, viz.: that the danger of meningitis was avoided, and that a superior stump was thereby obtained. Besides the denial of these claims, by some it has been objected that the greater degree of pain, and increased amount of inflammatory reaction, together with the prolonged period of healing, were decided disadvantages to be taken into account.
It is not my purpose in this paper to review the arguments of the author regarding the advantages of the method; but first, to offer a consideration relating to the chief objection, that of the consequent pain; and second, to mention an observation which may prove of value in securing a further improvement in the character of the stump.
PAIN.
All the published accounts of the operation which have come to my notice agree in the acknowledgment, that the severity of the pain and the duration of the healing is materially greater after evisceration than is the case following enucleation. My observation in the first five cases was a corroboration of these statements. The
