A treatise on nasal suppuration, or suupurative diseases of the nose and its accessory sinuses / by Ludwig Grünwald.

  • Grünwald, L. (Ludwig), 1863-1927.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on nasal suppuration, or suupurative diseases of the nose and its accessory sinuses / by Ludwig Grünwald. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    15/366
    The subject of nasal suppurations has not yet been treated in detail by any author. I was induced to attempt the task by the conviction that the importance of purulent nasal discharge as a symptom is very far from being appreciated by the public, and that this indifference is to some extent shared by the profession. Yet it is a symptom which is common to very various conditions, some quite trivial, and others threatening life. In addition, it was my object to show that this symptom in the great nmjority of cases depends upon local (or circum- scribed) disease, which, as a rule, requires surgical treatment for its cure. Indiscriminate douching has been far too much employed in nasal diseases, more especially in the suppurative cases, which might often be quickly cured by some comparatively slight surgical operation. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that there is such a thing as excessive surgical zeal, and of this there is at least a suspicion in the practice of some specialists. This extreme is best avoided by carefully investigating all the points which may throw light upon the nature of the local process and its relation to the general condition, rejecting vague and ambiguous aetiological terms, such as ' dyscrasia' and ' diathesis.' In this direction, too, I hope my book may be of use, by showing—what some at least among us have still to learn— that a ' dyscrasia ' is very often not the cause, but the con- sequence, of diseases of which the chief or only symptom is a purulent nasal discharge.