Introductory lecture to a course of military surgery : delivered in the University of Edinburgh, 1st May, 1850 / by Sir George Ballingall.

  • Ballingall, George, 1780-1855.
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture to a course of military surgery : delivered in the University of Edinburgh, 1st May, 1850 / by Sir George Ballingall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    together,—we have nothing to be compared to those splendid establishments on the continent to which I have just referred, and which I have recently I visited. Even the means of instruction afforded by the museums at Chatham, Iat Haslar, and at Plymouth, are more the result of professional energy than of government patronage, and, situated in provincial towns, they are but little available to the great bulk of the profession. In the Metropolitan School of Dublin a course of lectures on military surgery has been delivered for three \ years past, by Mr Tuffnell. But this is a matter of individual enterprise ; and I blush to think that I still stand alone as the only professor of military surgery in this country endowed by the government, while there are so many others qualified, by their talents, information, and experience, to be advantageously employed in making known to the rising generation of army and navy sur geons the peculiarities of those duties which they will be called upon to dis¬ charge. While the few standard authorities (of foreign countries) to which I have already referred in the medical branch of the subject, are comparatively of recent date, “ military surgery,” properly so called, has long ago acquired a more tangible and instructive shape. We find that the Italian sur- ; geons, who were the first to distinguish themselves in the successful pursuit of anatomical science, were amongst the first to produce express (works on the treatment of wounds and injuries received in battle, from the warlike weapons of the 13th century ; but the invention of gun¬ powder, and its employment in battle, produced such essential changes in the features of war, and in the character of the wounds presented to the army surgeons, that it seems to me quite superfluous to dwell upon the imperfect traces of our art, as practised by the heroes of antiquity, or noticed in the writings of historians. It is not very wonderful that the novelty and mortality consequent upon gunshot wounds should have led surgeons, as well as soldiers, to indulge in the opinion of their poisonous character, which was very generally entertained until overthrown by Ambrose Pare, a man who united to all the knowledge of his time, a singular degree of originality and talent, which enabled him to deviate widely from the line of his predecessors and contemporaries, to discard many of the foolish superstitions and crude practices then in use, and thus to i simplify and improve greatly the treatment of wounds. The circumstance of his being attached to the army in one of the most warlike periods of the his¬ tory of France, and of his being surgeon to four, if not five, successive sove¬ reigns, gave him a field of practical experience in military surgery ’which none ' of the Italian surgeons had yet enjoyed, and which, since that time, has scarcely fallen to the lot of any individual. [Here the lecturer introduced a historical sketch of the writings of the more distinguished military surgeons of England, as already published in his u Out¬ lines,” and proceeded to notice the labours of his friend, Mr Guthrie, as follows.] Mr Guthrie’s “ Treatise on Gunshot Wounds ” was first published in 1815, and in subsequent editions has been greatly enlarged and improved, embracing observations on £< Inflammation, Erysipelas, and Mortification,” on “ Injuries of Nerves,” and on “ Wounds of the Extremities, requiring Amputation.” Here the author enters into the consideration of gunshot wounds in general, and illustrates his doctrines by a reference to the events of the Peninsular war, and to the most extensive experience, which perhaps any of his countrymen have ever enjoyed. To Mr Guthrie the profession has subsequently been indebted for several important surgical works ; and the young surgeons of the army are particularly indebted to him for his Clinical Lectures, in which he has power¬ fully advocated their interests, and given a vivid picture of the realities of the service. In a series of u Lectures on Wounds and Injuries of the Chest and Abdomen,” which have been published in one of the journals, and of which Mr Guthrie has put me in possession in a separate form, we find him with all the energy of his younger days advocating the cause of the wounded soldier.