BY
Paraffin Injections
BY
Comprising a description of a method of treatment destined
to occupyan important place as a cure for rupture
owing to the extremesimplicity of the technic
and its advantages from an economic
standpoint
CHICAGO
Oak Printing Co., 9 Wendell St.
1908
[Pg 2]Copyright 1908
By Charles C. Miller
In taking up the description of the injection of paraffin for the cureof hernia a number of remarks of a prefatory nature are called for, asit is necessary to justify a treatment which has come in for aconsiderable censure from surgeons who have had no experience with themethod and who have judged solely from a few mishaps which came totheir attention and which in no way permit of an accurate estimate ofthe treatment.
Paraffin injections have been in use only a few years. When firstintroduced their value for the closing of hernial openings wasmentioned. At the time the factors which made injections valuable forsuch treatment were not appreciated. Paraffin was merely looked uponas an agent which might be used to plug a hernial opening and suchplugging of a hernial[Pg 4]opening is impracticable without histologicchanges in the tissues to cause permanent closure of the hernialpassage.
Paraffin has a tendency to promote the formation of connective tissueand in hernial cases there is invariably a state of the parts whichwill be benefitted by the throwing out of connective tissue in theneighborhood of the deficiency which gives passage to the hernialcontents. Besides this production of connective tissue, the occlusionof the hernial sac and glueing together of the walls of the hernialcanal, the plugging and supportive action of a material like paraffinis likely to be in a measure useful as the paraffin does not lie inthe tissues as a single mass, but it is traversed by trabeculae ofconnective tissue.
Injections of paraffin are accomplished with such ease withoutanesthesia that the mere fact that a hernia is curable without thetaking of an anesthetic is an advantage on the part of the paraffinmethod which will be highly appreciated by a very large percentage ofpatients suffering from rupture.
It is safe to say that for every patient suffering from rupture who iswilling to submit to the cutting operation four or five patients willbe met who are afraid to submit to such operation because a generalanesthetic is to be taken.
Paraffin injections may be made in the physician's office and there isno condition produced which renders it difficult for the patient afterinjection to go to his home, if he must not travel more than amoderate distance. The reaction may be such as to make it advisable for[Pg 6]the patient to remain quiet for a week or even two weeks, though thisis exceptional, yet such avoidance of exertion is not looked upon inthe same light by patients as two weeks strict confinement