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 hernial opening 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.