Address delivered by Edward Lund, F.R.C.S. ... at the meeting held in Manchester, June 30th, 1880.

  • Lund, Edward, 1823-1898.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered by Edward Lund, F.R.C.S. ... at the meeting held in Manchester, June 30th, 1880. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    with ready acceptance. I do not wish to be misunderstood in the use of these terms. I am supposing that every plan has been tried in a given case to check the advance of disease, or to attempt to cure it, and to restore the patient to perfect health. But there will still remain many—very many—cases in which, either from the imperfect condition of our art, or from the nature of the malady itself, this is not possible. It is too late to prevent, for the disease has fully established itself, the end is at hand, and it is apparent that life is fast ebbing. How, then, can we best, in such cases, alleviate the general distress, preserve the strength, prolong the life, and mitigate or lessen the intensity of pain ? Such questions as these must lead us into a train of thought which is susceptible of so many ramifica- tions ; and we might go so largely into detail, in treating the subject, that I feel I can, on this occa- sion, only hint at a few points of interest which will show you that palliative treatment in surgical cases, and palliative medicine, are things to be more con- stantly thought over than they are wont to be. The young practitioner, fresh from the schools, and imbued with certain fixed principles of treatment which he believes are exactly suitable to every case, realizes, after a few years’ experience in active practice, the truth of the remark made by tlio Scotch physician, when he exclaimed—“ When I first entered upon practice I felt as if I had twenty
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