Abdominal surgery / by J. Greig Smith.

  • Smith, J. Greig, 1834-1897.
Date:
[1891]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Abdominal surgery / by J. Greig Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    those of Lammonier of Rouen, Dzondi of Halle, and Galenzowsky of Wilna, even if they had been ovariotomies, which they were not, were performed subsequently to the first operation of McDowell. In December, 1809, McDowell operated on Mrs. Crawford, and seven years later he published his report of this and two other operations. In America, the operation thus initiated was taken up by Dunlap of Ohio, by Nathan Smith of Connecticut, by Alban Smith of Kentucky, by Gallup of Vermont, and by many others. Up to the end of 1863, accord- ing to Peaslee,:;: ovariotomy had been reported as performed in America 117 times, with 68 recoveries and 49 deaths. Since then, American surgeons have taken a prominent and honour- able share in perfecting the operation, which is now performed everywhere throughout the Continent. In Great Britain, the operation did not at first make much progress. Lizars operated in Edinburgh once in 1824, and three times in 1825, but with such small success that Liston boasted that he took good care that Lizars did not set about any such operation in the Infirmary after he became attached to it. The medical papers of those days were also dead against the operation; and few attempts and an equal number of failures were recorded till 1836, when William Jeaffreson, a surgeon of Framlingham, operated successfully by the small incision. In the same year, King of Saxmundham had a successful operation; and in 1839, West of Tonbridge had two successes. A few London surgeons operated in the next year or two, in every case unsuccessfully. The thread of success was then picked up by Charles Clay of Manchester in 1842, who, in the words of Houston did, the somewhat trivial expedient adopted for removing the glairy fluid should leave unmentioned the far more important proceeding of removing the tumour, and dividing and securing the pedicle. I then squeezed out all I could [of the contents], and stitched up the wound in three places. If between the squeezing and the stitching the grand measures of removing the tumour and securing its pedicle really did occur, I think he must have at least mentioned them. Houston says the tumour was of the left ovary, but the only proof he adduces in support of this is that it lay on the left side. The after-history of the case is in no way inconsistent with his having incised an ovarian growth. * Ovarian Tumours, p. 247 ; London, 1873.