The principles and practice of modern surgery / by Roswell Park ... with 722 engravings and 60 full-page plates in colors and monochrome.

  • Roswell Park
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of modern surgery / by Roswell Park ... with 722 engravings and 60 full-page plates in colors and monochrome. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    17/1200 (page 17)
    GENERAL SURGERY. INTRODUCTION. An ultinijito analysis of the primary causes of disease, excluding traumatisms, will permit their reduction to one or the other of the following categories: mdritional (func- tional) and parasitic. These may co-exist, in which case each tends to modify the other more or less, usually unpleasantly, or either may y)recede and perhaps pave the way for the other. In general, it may be said that |)arasitism perverts nutrition, locally or generally, antl, per contra, that perverted nutrition often prepares the way ff)r ])arasitic infection, so that even between these primary causes there may occur all possible com- binations. With traumatisms surgery alone is mainly concerned, but its conceded scope is now widened to include an ever-increasing number of morbid conditions, which, in time past, were treated medicinally—or not at all. Thus it has come to pass that it is no longer possible to make an abrupt distinction between medicine and surgery, nor even brieflv to define the words surgery and surgeon, nor yet to ascribe to either the physician or the surgeon his exact functions as such. In centuries past ])hysicians were exceed- ingly jealous of their vested rights, and with )>ropriety, when the only surgeons were un- educated barbers. But about one hundred years ago conditions were materially altered for the better, and surgery, liberated from its medieval environment, and from the restrictions imposed by the clergy, rapidly developed into both a science and an art, while the surgeon came to take that po.sition in society to which his increasing attainments entitled him. During the past thirty years surgery, thanks to earnest workers in the surgical laboratories of the world, has made progress scarcely equalled by the science of electricity, and the impossibilities of yesterday have become the routine of today. Thus has come about the earlier separation, and now, in some respects at least, the closer appreciation of the respective scope and functions of the physician and the surgeon. Between them lies yet what has been felicitously called the borderland, where they meet on common ground, too often as rivals and not often enough as co-workers. Nowhere do comprehensive knowledge, wide experience, and trained judgment appear to better advantage, nor lead to better results, than when exhibited where co-operation in these respects is most hearty. Someone has most happily said that the surgeon is a physician who knows how to use his hands, yet to regard a course in surgery as one in manual training would be a most lamentable conception of its purpo.ses. Rather is it to be regarded as a superstructure, to be built upon a thorough familiarity with anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics. In fact, the better general practitioner a man is, the better surgeon may he thereby become, providing he pos.sess the other necessary attributes. John Hunter took this view, but too many since his day have forgotten or never realized it. In the pages which follow it has been impossible to do more than epitomize our present- day knowledge of surgery, an early disavowal which is intended to save too frequent repetition of the advice to consult, as needed, other larger and more specialized works. The attempt here has been rather to build up a framework upon which the student and the investigator may build with such other material as they may later select from the quarries which are accessible to them. Hence it has been impossible to describe or even mention all the operations which have been devised to meet various indications.