Recent surgical progress : a result chiefly of experimental research / by W.W. Keen.

  • Keen, William W. (William Williams), 1837-1932.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Recent surgical progress : a result chiefly of experimental research / by W.W. Keen. 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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    s,' RECENTT SURGICAL PROGRESS In October, 1889, and June, 1893, in Harpers Magazine I gave some account of the progress of surgery. In the sixteen years that have elapsed since my last paper was written there has been much further progress in various directions, I can only consider a very few of these advances, and even those in a very incomplete manner. SURGERY OF THE HEART. Up to the publication of Fischers paper in 1867, scarcely any surgeon took the surgery of the heart seriously. That paper was based on a study of 452 published cases of wounds of the human heart, and he showed that a patient might live for hours or even days with a wounded heart. In 1881 Dr. John B. Roberts, of Philadelphia, made the bold proposal deliberately to sew up a wound of the heart, in spite of the fact that Billroth, the then most distinguished Continental surgeon, had declared that no one who wished ro preserve the respect of his colleagues would ever attempt to operate on the heart. In 1896, after a number £>f experiments upon animals, two unsuccessful attempts to sew up a wound of the heart were published, followed happily in 1897 A