Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/624

 612 GANGRENE GANNAL transfixed with a seton ; the subsequent thick- ness may be removed by the vapor or steam bath and douche ; any rheumatic taint requires to be corrected by appropriate remedies. A popular way of treating these tumors is to rupture them by a strong and sudden blow ; those on the back of the wrist and hand may thus be scattered without danger. GANGRENE (Gr. ydyypawz), the loss of life in any of the soft parts of the body, without ex- tinction of the vital powers in the rest of the organism. The term sphacelus has been ap- plied to the condition in which gangrene may terminate, the utter and irrecoverable death of a part, while in some stages of gangrene the circulation may not be completely arrested, the sensibility of the nerves not entirely gone, and recovery of the local loss of action not impos- sible. The death of the bony tissue is called necrosis. When gangrene is the consequence of violent inflammation or of the obstructed return of venous blood, the affected parts are gol'ged with fluid, constituting humid gan- grene; while dry gangrene generally arises from a deficient supply of arterial blood or from constitutional causes, accompanied by very slight or by no inflammation, the mortified part becoming dry and hard ; the gangrenous portion in the former case is called a slough, in the latter an eschar. The local predisposing causes are congestion and deficient circulation ; the constitutional are weakness from disease, old age, or privation. The exciting causes are mechanical and chemical injuries, especially gun-shot, lacerated, and poisoned wounds ; in- sufficient supply of arterial or obstructed re- turn of venous blood, as in the gangrene from ossified arteries in the first case and that from heart disease and varicose veins in the second ; and injury or division of nerves. The areolar tissue is most subject to gangrene ; after this come tendons and ligaments, denuded bone, the skin, and the muscles, in the order of enu- meration. Gangrene spreads slowly or rapidly, according to the accompanying inflammation or the energy of the vital processes. When inflammation is about to end in gangrene, the redness becomes livid, with diminution of pain and sensibility, though the swelling may be in- creased ; the parts become soft and cold, and emit an odor of decomposition ; the livid color, when the disease is spreading, is gradually lost in the surrounding skin, but when the dead portion is to be cast off, a bright red line sepa- rates the healthy from the gangrenous tissue, called the "line of demarcation ;" in a healthy person there may be high accompanying fever, but in a debilitated constitution the symptoms will be those of prostration and typhoid. The indications of treatment are to diminish the inflammation by general and local means; to support the strength by tonics and stimulants, when the gangrene is extensive or the system debilitated ; to quiet restlessness and nervous irritability by opium ; and to facilitate the sep- aration of the dead parts by warm and stimu- lating applications, and by incisions to permit the free escape of fluids whose absorption might propagate the disease to internal vital organs. Amputation of a limb is sometimes the only way of arresting the spread of gan- grene. Surgery often has occasion to produce gangrene as a remedial measure, in the remo- val of tumors and diseased growths ; hasmor- rhoidal swellings, nasal and uterine polypi, erec- tile tumors, cancerous growths, &c., are effec- tually and safely removed by cutting off their supply of blood by ligature of the principal vessels. Gangrene is always a dangerous symptom, especially in very young or very old persons, and in weakened constitutions; and when terminating favorably, it may leave be- hind it tedious suppurations, fistnlous ulcers, and various deformities. Hospital gangrene, or sloughing phagedoena, a putrid disease caused by crowding sick and wounded men into ill-ventilated and dirty rooms, is one of the most terrible accompaniments of war, often de- stroying more than the bullet and the sword ; and the army surgeon generally finds his best directed efforts set at defiance by the force of surrounding and insurmountable obstacles. The principles of treatment are the same as in ordinary gangrene. GANJA91, a town of India, in the district of the same name, presidency of Madras, on the left bank of the river Eosikoila, just above its entrance into the bay of Bengal, 168 m. N. E. of Vizagapatam. It was formerly the capital of the district, had harbor fortifications, and was noted for its fine public buildings, houses, and gardens ; but in 1835 it was desolated by a fever, and since then it has been almost de- serted and falling to decay. Still it has several cotton factories and carries on a considerable trade. The district, one of the five formerly called the Northern Circars, has an area of 6,400 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 1,487,227. The coast is bold and rocky, with no large harbors, succeeded by a wide sandy plain extending to a range of hills. The rivers are all dry in the summer, and the district is sometimes visited by severe drought and famine; in 1866 nearly half the population was lost from this cause. The staple productions are rice, maize, sugar cane, millet, pulse, oil seeds, wax, lac, gums, dyestuffs, arrowroot, and cotton. GANNAL, Jean Nicolas, a French chemist, born in Saarlouis, July 28, 1791, died in Paris in January, 1852. After being employed in a drug shop, he was in 1808 attached as an apothecary to the medical department of the French army, and in 1816 he was the chemical assistant of Thnard in his lectures at the Sor- bonne. He afterward devoted himself to use- ful inventions and to industrial enterprises con- nected with them. He invented a new kind of chimney, the first elastic rollers for the printing press, the refining of borax, a new method for melting and hardening tallow em- ployed in making candles, &c. In 1827 he re- ceived the Montyon prize from the institute