Sir William Fergusson, bart. : a biographical sketch / by Henry Smith.

  • Smith, Henry, 1823-1894.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir William Fergusson, bart. : a biographical sketch / by Henry Smith. 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.

    11/36 (page 11)
    the entire scapula in a case of extensive disease of the bone, where previously amputation of the arm at the joint had been carried out. The patient made an excellent recovery, and this formidable proceeding was subsequently successfully accomplished by himself and some other surgeons. In one notable instance he removed the entire scapula with the arm in a young woman, under discouraging circumstances, with the most satisfactory results. The particulars both of the operation on the hip, and that on the scapula, were published in the Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society. As Fergusson increased in years and in experience, he became more and more imbued with his love of conservative surgery, and in 1850 he directed his attention to the surgery of the knee-joint. Dissatisfied with the practice of amputation of the thigh for incurable disease of this joint, he had long meditated the possibility of supplanting this great mutilation by some other method; and, encouraged by the celebrated case of Park of Liverpool, notwithstanding the unfavourable experiences of Crampton and Syme, he determined to make the attempt to save the limbs as well as the lives of patients suffering under disease of this great articulation. Accordingly, he adopted the practice of excision of the joint in a case in which the operation was called for. Death rapidly followed this praiseworthy attempt. But Fergusson was not discouraged; he repeated the operation in another case with success, and then, so far as he was