Extracts from the report of the surgical staff of the Middlesex Hospital upon the treatment of cancerous diseases in the hospital on the plan introduced by Dr. Fell.

  • Jesse Weldon Fell
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extracts from the report of the surgical staff of the Middlesex Hospital upon the treatment of cancerous diseases in the hospital on the plan introduced by Dr. Fell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in the placid languor of the face, the unusual brilliancy of the eye, and the gently corrugated brow, the sad tale of her almost inevitable doom. It is this sadly interesting appearance—in almost all cases manifested—which has led to the popular notion that those insatiable tyrants, cancer and consumption, attack only the fairest and lovliest of our species. It would seem that the twin sisters, cancer and consumption, so unlike in all other respects, resemble each other in this, that when secure of their victims, they seek to throw around them that c gilded halo’ which 4 hovering round decay,’ makes them more loved while living’, and more deeply regretted when dead, wbdn— ‘ So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start—for soul is wanting there.’ ■ At the commencement of the present year the authorities of Middlesex Hospital were placed in communication with Dr. Fell who for the last twelve years has treated cancer with great success in the United States. Middlesex Hospital is the only establishment in London which possesses a ward exclusively appropriated to cancer cases, and in connection with these wards the names of Whitbread and Laffan are most honourably associated for the generous liberality with which they bequeathed a large portion of the necessary funds. The managers of the hospital felt the responsibility of carrying out the wishes of those munificent donors, and they have for several years past anxiously brought to their aid every resourse which medical science and experience could suggest, in order to provide a remedy for the terrible disease. Acting in this spirit of enlightened liberality, the directors made an arrangement with Dr. Fell under the terms of which that gentleman was to have the exclusive and undisturbed treatment of a number of cases in the cancer ward, under the inspection of their own medical officers; and Dr. Fell also intimated his intention at the expira¬ tion of a given period—six months, as we understand—to place his particular mode of treatment at the disposal of the medical profession at large. On the 22nd of January those arrange¬ ments took effect, and the results are of the most gratifying character. Formerly, when a patient entered the ward of the hospital, she did so with the settled conviction in her own mind, that she would never again be restored to the society of her friends. It was to her ‘the Valley of the Shadow of Death,’’ brightened, it is true, by everything that assiduous attention,.
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