An argument with the censor at St. Luke's Hospital, New York / by Hugh Owen Thomas.

  • Thomas, Hugh Owen, 1834-1891.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An argument with the censor at St. Luke's Hospital, New York / by Hugh Owen Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    American method can do, and had it given me even the results possible by the mechanics of our predecessors, I should not have laid it aside for another. What can the method of the treatment of joint disease of which others and myself are the exponents do? We assert that every case of hip-joint can be cured without leaving a fractional deformity of flexion, and con- sequently without any shortening except that either arising from the arrest of growth, where inflammation has interfered with the growing points in the upper parts of the femur, or from erosion; no matter whether the case goes on to suppuration or not, or is even presented to us for treatment in an advanced state of suppuration. AVe assert the same as regards the treatment ot knee-joint disease; and we gladly acknowledge that our practice is only an accentuation of the principles which our forefathers taught; and which principles surgeons in Great Britain and America with, beyond doubt, honourable inten- tions, but in error, have tried to discredit. The American method is not applicable to all the various stages of joint disease as the method termed by Dr. Shaffer old fashioned is known to be. Messrs. Judson and Shaffer utterly ignore the fact that diseased joints would recover without surgical aid but would be hampered by remaining deformity, which would diminish the usefulness or make useless the limb, just as with country has been attracted to this particular branch of surgery through the various articles of iliis able author in the different medical periodicals more than from any other source, and his lectures on this subject are very valuable instruction to Ortho- pedic literature. I also confess to having partaken of the fruit of this surgeon's labours, and though as time passed on we diverged, his influence was not totally unfruitful.