Dr. John Brown, his life and work : with narrative sketches of James Syme in the old Minto House Hospital and Dispensary days / by Alexander Peddie.

Peddie, Alexander

Date:: [1890]

Credit: Dr. John Brown, his life and work : with narrative sketches of James Syme in the old Minto House Hospital and Dispensary days / by Alexander Peddie. 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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$ing to be easily recognised and remembered. It was then, too, that he pubh'shcd Quarterly Reports of the Minto House cases in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal} which, if re- printed, might be read with benefit even at the present time. It was then, too, that he published his excellent treatise on Ex- cision of Diseased Joints^- that of the elbow having been intro- duced in this country by himself, and successfully practised. It was then also, he was the first in Britain to excise the superior maxillary bone for an osteo-sarcomatous growth, an operation which he successfully repeated several times with the aid of cutting pliers instead of the chisel and gouge ; and also several excisions of the lower jaw. Then, also, he performed many amputations by the flap operation instead of the then usual circular mode, excepting in the case of the leg, in which he in- troduced a modified form, by lateral semilunar incision of the integuments, reflecting them to the extent necessary for covering the bones. Then in these days he operated in various cases of aneurism, hernia, stone in the bladder, mammary tumours, etc., and treated various fractures and other diseases and injuries, in mostly all of which he made considerable changes on the old methods, and which in the progress of surgery he himself im- proved on, and others have adopted. Then, again, there were some ailments regarding which he originated entirely new views in diagnosis and treatment—such, for example, as in cases of ex- foliation from the pelvis, either from the ischium or pubis, which he explained as having had their origin from sudden strain on that point of bone to which the extensor and adductor muscles of the thigh are attached, and which, from the existence of sinuses in the neighbourhood of the hip, were apt to be taken for disease of the hip-joint or lower part of the spine. Now, too, he drew the attention of the profession to the facts then overlooked or neglected in fistula in ano, namely, the nearness of the internal opening to the verge of the anus, and the proper treatment being division of the small septum lying between it and the external opening without respect to the sinus above, however far that might extend, and then only interposing, for one day, a dress- ing in the cut surface. Then, long before tenotomy was prac- ' From May 1829 to August 1833. ^ Adam Black, Edinlnirgh, 1831.$