When shall we operate for appendicitis? / by Willy Meyer.

  • Meyer, Willy, 1858-1932.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: When shall we operate for appendicitis? / by Willy Meyer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ATTENDING SURGEON TO THE GERMAN AND NEW YORK SKIN AND CANCER HOSPITALS. Some time ago a colleague while reading a paper on appendicitis excused himself for again treating a sub- ject that had been discussed so often in our societies and considered in our journals within recent years. Not long afterward I heard another colleague say that “ he was absolutely convinced that ere long this craze of the laity to be operated upon for appendicitis would cease; far fewer operations would soon,” he thought, “be performed for this reason.” If anything could induce me to read a paper on appendicitis, these remarks of well-known gentlemen would. In this particular instance they are not the cause. This paper was ready, in part at least, last winter. For special reasons I felt myself unable to finish it. In my estimation we doctors cannot discuss this subject too often. If the laity should actually sooner or later give up this craze for operation, the doctors only are responsible for it. Now, I am not of the opinion that we should in our medical societies still discuss the pathological-ana- tomical aspect of appendicitis. Most exhaustive treat- ises, that deal also with this chapter of the disease, have appeared here and abroad within the last years. Nor do I believe it to be of special value to give a synopsis of all the cases operated upon by the single man, to give “ personal statistics” before a gathering of general practitioners. At our time, when almost 1 Read before the Metropolitan Medical Society, December 23, 1895.