Volume 1

The science and practice of surgery : including special chapters by different authors / by Frederick James Gant.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science and practice of surgery : including special chapters by different authors / by Frederick James Gant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF SURGERY. INTRODUCTION. MODEEN SUEGERY AS A SCIENCE AND AN AET. Sdegeet is that primary division of Medicine wliicli has for its ohject the cure or the relief of morbid conditions of the body, in a corre- i spending division of Pathology. But the line of separation is arbitrary, ' conventional, and indefinite. Firstly, as to the nature of the morbid conditions, or Surgical Pathology. All injuries, malformations, and deformities, congenital ; and acquired, and all diseases afiecting external parts, are usually ; allotted to Surgery. Secondly, in respect to the kind of Treatment, or the means of cure 1 or relief. Surgery comprises all operations effected by instruments, 1 manipulative procedures, and the employment of mechanical ap- ] pliances; but it also has recourse to the administration of medicinal I agents, and to hygienic measures. Surgical Pathology is both General and Special. General Surgical 1 Pathology comprises the different forms of Injury and Disease which are common to all parts of the body; and these morbid conditions, illustrating the laws of Pathology, are the primary source of guidance in all surgical practice. As general forms of Injury—Wounds, Fractures, Dislocations, and Aneurisms, may be naturally associated; and especially in virtue of the various laws whereby these lesions undergo Reparation, through processes which are more or less clearly referable to modifications of healthy Nutrition. But this department will be more conveniently considered in connection with the particular Textures injured. As general conditions of Disease—Inflammation, Morbid Growths or Tumours, and Degenerations, may also be referred to modifications of Nutrition; namely, to Accelerated, to Reproductive, and to De- clining Nutrition; while Ulceration, and Gangrene or Mortification, represent textural Death. Certain Blood diseases. Contagious dis- eases, and general diseases of the Nervous System, further illustrate the laws of Pathology. B