

553 



ever rally. He thus felt himself most reluctantly compelled to forego 

 one of the great and early objects of his ambition, but in compensa- 

 tion for this it may be remarked, that had he retained his post as 

 Sir Astley's colleague in the Surgical Chair, he probably never would 

 have penned the " Treatise on Constitutional Irritation," a production, 

 which has long since secured for its author a European reputation. 



Early in this century, Dr. Jones had explained the operation of a 

 single ligature upon the coats of an artery, and dispelled the obscurity 

 which had gathered round this question. There were, however, some 

 material points of doubt and discussion still remaining to be dealt with. 

 These the subject of our memoir finally and completely elucidated by 

 experiment, so that the causes of secondary hemorrhage are now well 

 ascertained, and are far more effectually guarded against than was the 

 case before the appearance of Mr. Travers's papers in the fourth and 

 ninth volumes of the "Medico-Chirurgical Transactions." It was after 

 his appointment to St. Thomas's that he perfected this inquiry, by 

 proving, on the person of a patient under his own care, that a ligature 

 may be withdrawn fifty hours after its application, without risk, and 

 successfully, so far as concerns the obliteration of the trunk of the 

 brachial artery. A similar result was obtained after tying the carotid 

 in the horse and ass, although the ligature was removed so early as 

 twelve or even nine hours after its original application. On one 

 occasion Mr. T. removed a ligature from the femoral artery of a 

 man twenty-seven hours after tying that vessel for a popliteal aneu- 

 rism, but here pulsation returned and the experiment failed. This 

 suggestion, or rather the discovery of these effects of the temporary 

 use of ligatures, was entirely original, as well as the announcement of 

 another new fact, to which we shall now make some allusion. 



In 1811 Mr. T. communicated to the Royal Society an account 

 of some experiments which exhibit the means adopted by nature 

 for the cure of wounded intestines. This paper was accepted for 

 publication, but it was withdrawn to form the groundwork of a larger 

 treatise, published in 1 8 1 2, which was most favourably received by the 

 profession. It is there proved that if the intestine of a dog be stran- 

 gulated by a single ligature, the ulcerative inflammation provides for 

 the escape of the thread into the cavity of the bowel ; nature at the 

 same time restoring the wall of the gut by a deposit of lymph, which 

 undergoes a rapid organization. Of the great work on Constitutional 



