Infections of the hand: A guide to the surgical treatment of acute and chronic suppurative processes in the fingers, hand, and forearm.

The first comprehensive treatise on hand surgery, and the classic work on tendon and bursal hand spaces relevant to management of hand infections. Kanavel developed the method of forcible injection of radio-opaque material into tendon sheaths and fascial spaces of the hand; this enabled him to find a definite and constant pattern in the way that infectious material spread from sheath to space, and to drain infected areas without damage to important structures. Kanavel's classic work "did more to awaken the surgical conscience to the anatomic intricacies of hand surgery than did almost any other single contribution" (Bick). Kanavel put the work through seven editions between 1912 and 1933. Each successive edition of Kanavel's work bears substantial revisions; together these editions show the evolution of hand surgery over its first twenty years. Boyes, On the Shoulders of Giants, pp. 170-72.