The improvements in modern surgery : being the oration delivered March 8, 1854, before the Medical Society of London, at the eighty-first anniversary / by Henry Smith.
- Smith, Henry, 1823-1894.
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The improvements in modern surgery : being the oration delivered March 8, 1854, before the Medical Society of London, at the eighty-first anniversary / by Henry Smith. 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.
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![the occurrence of that local and general irritation which has so often rendered the efforts of the surgeon quite nugatory. In connexion with tlie surgery of diseased joints, great pro- gress has of late years been made, and here, more than else- where perhaps, it is seen how much the success of our treat- ment depends upon an acquaintance with the true pathological conditions of diseased textures. Our illustrious fellow-coun- tryman, Sir Benjamin Brodie, has signalised himself by his re- searches in this quarter, his masterly descriptions of the affec- tions of joints must be familiar to us all, and to him must, in a great measure, be ascribed the improvement which has taken place in the treatment of articular disease, for he has strongly pointed out the great importance of keeping an affected joint at ])erfect rest, and it is well known that in many of those in- stances where the cai'tilages alone are ulcei'ated, or where with this condition the subjacent bone is only superficially diseased, pei'fect quietude of the joint, together with the use of those means which improve the general system, and a patient re- liance upon the resources of nature, will bring about recovery, and prevent those measures of mutilation which were so fre- quently ]3ut in force, before the pathology of these diseases was so well understood as it is at present. It is the subject of remark, that the surgery of the present day is highly conservative, or rapidly tending to conservatism, in the true meaning of the word, so far different, indeed, from the term as employed in a political sense ; and we see, in the present improved method of treating diseased joints, an ad- mirable illusti'ation of this great and satisfactory trath ; and, in connexion with this matter, I refer with the greatest pleasm-e to the researches of one of the most intelligent and most pains- taking surgeons belonging to this Society, Mr. Gay, who, im- bued with the spirit which should animate a cultivator of sur- gical science, has thoroughly investigated the patholog}' of cer- tain affections of the joints, and basing his views upon sure and certain pathological data, has adopted a mode of practice in the treatment of these diseased conditions, which must, indeed, be ranked amongst the gi-eat improvements in surgery of the pre- sent period. He has shown that in many cases the bones are only superficially diseased, and that in such instances, by making free incisions into an ulcerated and suppurating joint, the d&bris of the diseased tissues will have an opportunity of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2147767x_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
