I., Mr. W. P. Nicholson's pamphlet : and II., Dr. B. W. Dudley's reply.

  • Nicholson, W. P.
Date:
[1829]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: I., Mr. W. P. Nicholson's pamphlet : and II., Dr. B. W. Dudley's reply. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    time after the egg-shell fracture ;ook place. I am the more certain of this circumsi ace, bee .use of my having asked him if the mechc.ne was not calomel, and observing to him that I was in the habit of taking from fifteen to eighteen grains. His reply is distinctly within my recol- lection; it was, if ten grains would not have the desired effect, rifty would not. I snail now notice the journey I performed, which, as the Doctor says, was about the 22d day, but which, in fact, was on the 26tn day. H< s iys, nothing can exceed the folly and stupidity of the charge against the use of the bandage in my case, the more especially as the patient was well enough after two attacks of fever induced by imprudence, .nd the injury done his knee, and the head of his fibula* to leave town in twenty-two days. Here the Doctor is at poinls with himself, He certainly must have forgotten that in giving a history of the case, at the commencement, he says, no other part of the limb received the slightest injury except the head of the fibula, which was like the crash of egg^ shells; but when he recites my journey, performed on the 22d day, in order to impress the public with the idea that the case was a very despe- rate one, (which, unfortunately for me, was made so by his mismanage- ment,) and that consequently the case was bordering on the miraculous, he recollected of a sudden that the knee was injured. Now in all human probability, if the Doctor had written another par- agraph, he might have recollected the circumstance of his giving two gentlemen the trouble of holding two bones, which he represented as being broken, whilst he was preparing and applying the bandages. It is unfortunaie for the success of the Doclor, that he is not able lo con- tinue this delusion, as with the aid of those two bones, which were ne^ ver broken, except in his imagination, he might be able to make out a tolerably specious case. Facts, however, stand too strongly arrayed against him, and he has been compelled to yield to circumstances. Ow- ing to his wreiched misapprehension of the nature and extent of the in- jury I had received, and barbarous application of the bandages, the flesh sloughed off, and exposed the bones to view, when it was disco vet ed that there was not the slightest crack perceptible—no evidence of bro- ken bones. This can be established by some of the most eminent physicians, as well as by several respectable genilemen in and around Lexington. Thus driven to the wall, the Doctor has very prudently dropt the broken bone?, conscious that so flagrant a mistake would be received as a proof of his defective judgment, and as a reflection upon his skill as a surgeon. A more gross misconception of the character of an injury, I think I might venture to assert, is not to be found in the. books; nor never did any individual sutfei more through stupidity than I have done; for, by what other name shall 1 designate thai condition of the mind, which mistakes a simple sprain, for an injury of the complicated kind, as ascrk bed to mine by Dr. Dudley? I will return to my case. The day suc- ag the one on which ! me with the accident, Dr. Webb, as before premised, came to see me, and observed that if the bandage remained in