OPERATION WITHOUT ANESTHESIA A GREAT ADVANTAGE.
Injections of paraffin are accomplished with such ease without anesthesia that the mere fact that a hernia is curable without the taking of an anesthetic is an advantage on the part of the paraffin method which will be highly appreciated by a very large percentage of patients suffering from rupture.
It is safe to say that for every patient suffering from rupture who is willing to submit to the cutting operation four or five patients will be met who are afraid to submit to such operation because a general anesthetic is to be taken.
Applicable in the Physician's Office.
Paraffin injections may be made in the physician's office and there is no condition produced which renders it difficult for the patient after injection to go to his home, if he must not travel more than a moderate distance. The reaction may be such as to make it advisable for
the patient to remain quiet for a week or even two weeks, though this is exceptional, yet such avoidance of exertion is not looked upon in the same light by patients as two weeks strict confinement to bed.
The probability of escaping confinement is a great incentive to a patient to submit to an injection, when he would refuse operation.
Injections are not necessarily unphysiologic as the sufferer from a hernia has a physiologic deficiency which the paraffin accurately fills with normal connective tissue.
The dangers of injection can be eliminated. The technic is not difficult even when all precautions are taken.
There is less likelihood of suppuration following the injection treatment than following the cutting operation.
The consequences of suppuration are less. If suppuration occur after the open operation failure is likely, not to mention the danger of peritonitis. Such is not the case following injection, and while consequences are less
serious suppuration is avoided much more readily than following the open operation.
Only the operator thoroughly acquainted with the manner of disposition of paraffin should attempt the injection of hernia.
Simplicity.
To the skilled operator the injection treatment is exceedingly simple and the injection method must always be far more simple than the open operation can ever become.
A hernia can be injected without haste in from two to four minutes.
An assistant is of no use.
The open operation cannot be performed without the aid of several trained assistants, and without elaborate and expensive preparations, it is not feasable as anything but a hospital operation.
Hospital surgeons may be expected to condemn the injection treatment of hernia, as it will open to thousands of the profession a field
which has hitherto been monopolized by the surgeons with hospital facilities.
Experimental injections before human injections.
Before injecting a hernia the operator should be thoroughly acquainted with the manner of diffusion of paraffin in the tissues. This experience can be gained by the making of numerous injections into the carcass of a small animal and the subsequent careful dissection of the animal. A dead cat, dog, rabbit, or chicken may be used for experimental injections and many such injections should be made.
Hyperinjection of a hernial canal should be religiously avoided.
Should the operation fail and the patient suffer from the presence of the paraffin it can be removed by surgical means and at the same time the open operation performed.
The presence of the paraffin will not interfere with the successful performance of the open operation nor will it complicate the operation so that the chances of a radical cure are not
diminished from this method, nor is the patient liable to a slower convalescence.
Vehement protests against the use of paraffin injections are to be expected from surgeons doing the open operation, and unbiased readers should not be misled by condemnatory remarks from inexperienced sources.