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Dropsy Treatment with Scarifier and Trocar, Page 4

Treating Dropsies with a Trocar - The 'Modern' Method

"Let's now then see how the Moderns execute their Operation with a Trocar…

Figure X: Of the Paracentisis
Tools P,Q (M. Dionis, p. 69) [This operation requires] only two things; an Instrument P, and a Plaister Q. The instrument is called a Trocar or Trois-carts, that is, three quarters, by reason of its Point being triangular; 'tis shaped like a Puncheon, and its length is about two or three Fingers breadth, being excavated throughout its whole length, like a small Pipe, except towards the Point, where are four small holes laterally placed, by which the Water enters into the Cavity, and runs out of the Body: It is provided with a head like a Pipe, by pushing, which with the Thumb one is able to trust it into the Body at one Effort; then, by taking the Thumb from the Aperture, the Water runs out as from a Cock.

Mission's Trocar, Together

Mission's Trocar, Seperate
Of these Trocars, some are provided with handles, and their Needle is placed in the Cavity of a small Tube. To use either the one, or other, the Patient is set in an Elbow Chair, and the Chirurgeon draws the Skin a little upwards, or else downwards, at the Place where he designs to pierce: Then, all at once, he thrusts in the Instrument, as one does a Cock into a Cask of Wine; he sets at the Patient's Feet a Bason, which receives the Water that comes out, which he lets run at Discretion. When the Chirurgeon finds he has drawn enough, he need only pull out the Trocar, and the running of the Water will at that Moment cease, and not a single drop more will come out, because the Skin, Muscles, and the Peritonæum returning, stop the Apertures of one another.

To this Puncture is applied only a Plaister of Ceruse, of the bigness of about a piece of fifteen Sols. When the Chirurgeon again desires to draw out the Water, he makes new Punctions alternatively on the two sides, as many Times as he judges necessary, that one side may not be worse treated than the other, taking care that repeated Punctures on the same side be mutually distant from each other about two Fingers breadth." (Dionis, p. 84)

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