A review of the present state of uterine pathology / by James Henry Bennet.

  • Bennet, James Henry, 1816-1891.
Date:
1856
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A review of the present state of uterine pathology / by James Henry Bennet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    115/152 (page 3)
    {From the Dublin Medical Press, July 4th, 1849.) We presume there are few medical men whose practice embraces the disease in question who will not possess themselves of Dr. Bennet's Treatise, which we have no hesitation in pronouncing to be the most original, as well as the most complete, upon the subject that it has fallen to our lot to peruse. (From the British and Foreign Medico-Chiruryical Review, January, 1850.) Dr. Bennet has shown the most ardent zeal in his inquiries, and an integrity which makes them especially valuable. His first work contained a condensed account of his facts and experience, and we are glad to perceive that the rapid sale of this small work gives the best evidence of the strong desire of the profession to throw aside their prejudices, and to give their best attention to the nature and treatment of the affections hitherto classed under the term leucorrhoea. We have now equal pleasure in introducing to their notice a larger work on the same sub- ject. We shall not call it a second edition, because, as Dr. Bennet truly observes, it is really a new work The length of our analysis of Dr. Bennet's work, and the general tone of our commentary, will have afforded to our readers suf- ficient evidence of our high estimation of it. It throws a new light on diseases hitherto treated without any knowledge of their real character, and opens forth to us a subject almost totally neglected by preceding writers. In pointing out the frequency of inflammation of the womb, its various consequences, and the pro- tracted suffering to which it gives rise, we consider that Dr. Bennet has done great service to the profession. The lessons it contains are invaluable, and we feel assured that they ought to be perused and studied by every practitioner who would venture on the treatment of female complaints. (From the Half-yearly Abstract of Medical Science, 1849.) We have the pleasure of being able to speak in terms of high commendation of the next book on our list by Dr. Bennet. When, a few years back, the first edition of the present work was published, the subject was one which was almost unknown, even to the obstetrical celebrities of the day ; and even now we have reason to know that the bulk of the profession are not fully alive to the importance and frequency of the disease of which it takes cognizance Dr. Bennet's volume is another proof that in medicine, as in everything else, for whatever of real progress is made, we are, nine times out of ten, indebted to, comparatively speaking, young men. Dr. Bennet has not, we believe, reached the meridian of life [has only just reached], but we question whether there is any senior in his department, that must not own, if he has candour enough to do so, that the volume before us contains a mass of information to which with all his experience he was previously a stranger. (From the American Journal of Medical Sciences for April, 1850.) The favourable opinion of the views advanced by Dr. Bennet in relation to the more frequent diseases of the uterus, their diagnosis and treatment, expressed by us in our notice of the first edition of his treatise, has been strengthened and con- firmed by the results subsequently derived from our own experience. His observa- tions have unquestionably been the means of throwing much light upon the patho- logy of what were previously considered as obscure and intractable uterine affec- tions, and by insisting upon the use of the speculum as the only certain means of diagnosis in these diseases, he has greatly facilitated their study, and rendered an acquaintance with their phenomena and phases more familiar to the mass of the profession, while at the same time he has rendered their management less empirical, and its results more certain and satisfactory. We invite the physicians of this country to a careful study of the work of Dr. Bennet. We believe that the leading views advanced by the author are founded in truth, and lead to a simple and certain plan of treatment in a class of diseases, the character of which has heretofore been much misunderstood, and the treatment of which has been most grievously mis- managed. Every chapter of the work is replete with instruction. The facts advanced by Dr. Bennet have evidently been the fruits of personal observation made in a wide and favourable field, and through the test of repeated observation made by others their truthfulness will in time be fully established. The sufferings, privations, and mortification inflicted upon the female sex by diseases of the uterine organs, strongly press the study of these diseases upon the attention of the phy- sician, and in that study we believe he can find no more faithful or efficient guide than is furnished him by Dr. Bennet in the work before us.