FOREWORD.In taking up the description of the injection of paraffin for the cure of hernia a number of remarks of a prefatory nature are called for, as it is necessary to justify a treatment which has come in for a considerable censure from surgeons who have had no experience with the method and who have judged solely from a few mishaps which came to their attention and which in no way permit of an accurate estimate of the treatment.Paraffin injections have been in use only a few years. When first introduced their value for the closing of hernial openings was mentioned. At the time the factors which made injections valuable for such treatment were not appreciated. Paraffin was merely looked upon as an agent which might be used to plug a hernial opening and such plugging of a hernialopening is impracticable without histologic changes in the tissues to cause permanent closure of the hernial passage.The need which Paraffin fulfills in Hernia.Paraffin has a tendency to promote the formation of connective tissue and in hernial cases there is invariably a state of the parts which will be benefitted by the throwing out of connective tissue in the neighborhood of the deficiency which gives passage to the hernial contents. Besides this production of connective tissue, the occlusion of the hernial sac and glueing together of the walls of the hernial canal, the plugging and supportive action of a material like paraffin is likely to be in a measure useful as the paraffin does not lie in the tissues as a single mass, but it is traversed by trabeculae of connective tissue.
In taking up the description of the injection of paraffin for the cure of hernia a number of remarks of a prefatory nature are called for, as it is necessary to justify a treatment which has come in for a considerable censure from surgeons who have had no experience with the method and who have judged solely from a few mishaps which came to their attention and which in no way permit of an accurate estimate of the treatment.
Paraffin injections have been in use only a few years. When first introduced their value for the closing of hernial openings was mentioned. At the time the factors which made injections valuable for such treatment were not appreciated. Paraffin was merely looked upon as an agent which might be used to plug a hernial opening and such plugging of a hernialopening is impracticable without histologic changes in the tissues to cause permanent closure of the hernial passage.
Paraffin has a tendency to promote the formation of connective tissue and in hernial cases there is invariably a state of the parts which will be benefitted by the throwing out of connective tissue in the neighborhood of the deficiency which gives passage to the hernial contents. Besides this production of connective tissue, the occlusion of the hernial sac and glueing together of the walls of the hernial canal, the plugging and supportive action of a material like paraffin is likely to be in a measure useful as the paraffin does not lie in the tissues as a single mass, but it is traversed by trabeculae of connective tissue.