The London Surgical Home, or, modern surgical psychology : being a popular statement of the operations therein performed by Mr. Isaac Baker Brown / by John Scoffern.

John Scoffern

Date:: 1867

Credit: The London Surgical Home, or, modern surgical psychology : being a popular statement of the operations therein performed by Mr. Isaac Baker Brown / by John Scoffern. 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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$]\Iorocco it might pass—maybe in Bokhara,—but so extreme an operation would be repugnant to the feelings of advanced r Z“- '' * •' . England. The triumi^h of psychological.:ss¥^£ey is seen in this, viz.:—mild, peripheral, and subcutaneous operations are made to produce the results aimed at, instead of amputation. Again, if hands resolutely given to stealing were amputated, they coidd steal no more. This follows of necessity, and needs no argument. In respect of this too, I need hardly observe that actual amputation would not be tolerated in English society, to secure any psychological or moral result whatever. The illustration need be no further carried. The organic eliminative treatment, as it admits of being called, is comprehen- sive, nay, universal. Of course the objection lies against this system, that mere inability to commit a crime does in no measure interfere with the power to imagine it. Granted; but systems of human polity can by no means take cognisance of imaginings. One man may imagine a liking for his neighbour’s wife; but society can take no heed of the thought. Another man may violently desire to lay hold of his neighbour’s cheque-book, his purse, his house, his ass, his maid-servant. Or any other imaginable thing that may be his. Society can take no heed of aught but active sin. Until the last day, and the judgment, the latent sin must rest concealed; and resting concealed, unpunished. These few remarks will suffice to place in evidence the valua- ble, or more properly speaking invaluable, labours of Mr. Isaac Baker Brown, a metropolitan surgeon of celebrity; founder of the London Surgical Home. That beneficent institution numbers amongst its supporters some of the chief personages in the land. Eight reverend bishops lend it their countenance: princes and princesses condescend to insert their names on its honoured records. Higher proof could not be given of the soundness of the principles on which the establishment is based. It is but$