Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease ; and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake.
- Sheldrake, Timothy, active 1783-1806
- Date:
- 1804
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease ; and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
109/198 (page 81)
![Si to apply the tobacco glyster, purging medicines, &c. &c. On these I shall not employ the readers time or my own, though I may be permitted, in addition to what is already written, to observe, that if any absurdity exceeds all the follies of which a professional man can possibly be guilty, it is that of pretending to teach persons, without previous knowledge or means of observation to perform any thing like a surgical operation : and if this is the case in general, how much more so must it be if persons so instructed pre- tend to reduce a strangulated hernia, an operation ia which the most experienced surgeons sometimes fail, and where a very trifling mistake from ignoi'ance will cer- tainly be fatal ? This question I shall leave others to an- swer, and proceed to examine what may be termed the lighter parts of this valuable production. Page 27, he says, It ia a fact, which should be geine- i-al]y promulgated and attended to, that much depends on the means used at the commencement of tiie malady. *' The truss is * one of the most effectual rerne'dies a^t pre- Stent discovered for the treatment of this disorder; and, *' to whatever part it is to be applied, the greatest care must be taken to fit it with every pousible exactness. If this be not particularly attended to, the truss, instead of being useful, will be extremely injurious; for the *' sole intent of these bandages is to press directly on the *' opening through which the gut descended, or v/asforced *' from its natural position : the strictest attention should therefore be paid not only to the formation of the truss, *' but to its application. It too often happens, that the person zcho makes the truss applies it • and this presump- tionon his part, and zvant of cavtion in the pati- ENT, seldom fail to do mischief. A man may be a GOOD MECHANIC, and perform his work with ability; but he alone can apply the bandage with effect, who is *' acquainted with the anatomy of the human frame. The meaning of the above passage is sufficiently ob- vious ; but though he censijres those who viakc and ap- * There is no fact in surgery better established than that a rup- ture can only be, patiiativcly or radically, cured by the appliciitidn of a truss ; what, then, does the author mean by saying the truss is one of the most effectual remedies, and docs he mean tu say in the face of the luorld that there is any other? Or does he only communicate this doc- trine to his patients in private M plT^](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21467493_0109.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
