Charles McBurney / [Charles Howard Peck].

  • Peck, Charles H. (Charles Howard), 1870-1927.
Date:
[1923]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Charles McBurney / [Charles Howard Peck]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Roman Medical Society. In Europe he held a fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Scotland; he was also a corresponding member of the Societe de Chirurgie of Paris and an honorary member of the Medical Society of Constantinople. He devised several new procedures in surgical work and his contributions to surgical literature were many and important. The most notable, perhaps, were connected with the subject of appendicitis. His paper entitled “ Experience with Early Operative Interference in Cases of Disease of the Vermiform Appendix,” published in the New York Medical Journal, December 21, 1889, in which he emphasized the importance.of localized tenderness at “McBurney’s point,” was a classic, and a designation of the out¬ standing physical sign of the disease in its early stages, which will always be associated with his name, as will the intermuscular incision which he also intro¬ duced (in 1894), the “McBurney incision.” In the next few years five or six other important articles on appendicitis from his pen appeared in medical journals or in surgical textbooks. His attempt to devise an operation for the radical cure of hernia was not so successful, but was an evidence of his activity in seeking to improve the surgical procedures of his time. Other important contributions to surgical literature, some of them introducing new procedures were: “ Dislocation of the Humerus Complicated by Fracture at or near the Sur¬ gical Neck, with a New Method of Reduction,” Annals of Surgery, April 1894; “Removal of Biliary Calculi by the Duodenal Route (a new Operation),” Annals of Surgery, 1898; “The Use of Rubber Gloves in Operative Surgery,” Annals of Surgery, July, 1898; “Remarks Concerning the Practice of Aseptic Surgery,” New York Medical Journal, March 22, 1902; “The Technique of Aseptic Surgery,” International Text Book of Surgery. He was one of the early and consistent advocates of the use of rubber gloves, and his teaching did much to make their adoption universal. His increasing and extensive private practice necessitated his relinquishing the chair of surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1894, but he continued as professor of clinical surgery until he gave up active hospital work. He was called as consultant to the bedside of President McKinley a few days before his death. Although a good student of his specialty, Dr. McBurney was not a scientist in the restricted use of the term, but shone by his strong common-sense in his attitude toward his patients. He could not have been called a “brilliant” oper¬ ator, but his lack of hesitation, founded on the care with which he planned every operation and the thoroughness with which he completed each step before passing to the next, resulted in a great saving of time and left the spectator with the pro¬ found impression that he had seen a “Master of his Art” at work. Bold, yet a great respector of tissues, the finished result of his operations left little to be desired.