The shoulder : rupture of the supraspinatus tendon and other lesions in or about the subacromial bursa / E.A. Codman.

  • Codman, E. A. (Ernest Amory), 1869-1940.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The shoulder : rupture of the supraspinatus tendon and other lesions in or about the subacromial bursa / E.A. Codman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    facts is as repulsive to me as to see a calf bullied by a dog, while I stand bv and do nothing. What straight-thinking surgeon will deny that on any day at any public hospital one may see suffering, greater than that calf's, caused by incompetence or by neglect of well-known principles of diagnosis or treatment, on tbe parts of either the phy¬ sicians who treated the patient before his entrance into the hospital, or those in charge at the hospital. It is not these physicians I attack, but the lack of logical organization in our profession where, as stu¬ dents, we get instruction by example. I am sure I have suffered in greater degree by refraining from saying more about our medical and surgical customs than I have from the professional and social slights received in consequence of saying as much as I have said. If the western scene had been in the center of our II arvard Stadium, and the owner of the dog had been a favorite of the universitv, imagine what a brute I should have been called! The university, like the poor cow, regarded me as an enemy for trying to remove humbug from its grip on her offspring's ear. However, social position pro¬ tected me in both instances. On the plains my companions carried guns and our old guide had his rifle across his lap. When I attacked our system of medical education, argument was impossible, for every man in the audience knew that I was right. I had held it naked in the glare of publicity, and the only thing that could be done was to ignore the episode, and to proceed to dress it up a little in case of another Hash of lightning. There is now an improvement in the salaries of our professors, who are able to confine themselves more strictly to their teaching and their records, but a thoroughgoing comparative analysis of the results at their affiliated hospitals is not, as yet, a conspicuous feature in their prospectus. They are still obliged by the sentiment of our community to give more publicity to the art than to the science of medicine, while they continue to perform their indi¬ vidual experiments. When the War broke out I was contentedly carrying out my numerous plans. My friends in the Society of Clinical Surgery, al¬ though perhaps also shocked at my methods, were loyal. Kven my former comrades at the M. G. H. showed some forbearance and were doing what thev could to help. The fellow members of the Committee on Hospital Standardization had signed my reports, although at their own hospitals they were unable to fully exemplify the high ideals which we were recommending to others. By 1!)17 the American Col¬ lege of Surgeons had taken over the Hospital Standardization work, and it has since flourished under the able leadership of Dr. Mac- Kachern. I was enlarging my little hospital as fast as I could make,