Medical testimony in regard to Dr. Davis's new mode of treating joint diseases.

  • Davis, Henry G. (Henry Gassett), 1807-1896.
Date:
[1863?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical testimony in regard to Dr. Davis's new mode of treating joint diseases. 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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    November, 1859, a patient came under the care of the reporter, and he desired to make extension of, and still keep up motion in, the af- fected limb, but was unable to do it. How he succeeded at last, will be seeu by the following: ' He returned to the city under my care, in November, 1859, much improved, but with imperfect motion, and I observed that he always had more or less pain for one or two days after the motion had been applied, which I thought was owing to the fact that I could not keep up sufficient extension while I was applying the motion. ' This was a desideratum I had tried long to accomplish, but never succeeded to my satisfaction until Dr. H. G. Davis, of this city, ap- plied to him one of his instruments, which answered the purpose ad- mirably, and in its construction embraced the very principles I had so long sought to obtain.' I must here add, that before my seeing this patient, Dr. Sayre came to my office to inquire about my mode of treating Hip Disease, saying he had heard much about it, and would like to have me explain it to him. After conversing upon the principle of treatment, I took him to see a patient near by that had-been under treatment some months, and afforded him every facility in the examination, explaining all the parts and their objects; he expressed himself delighted with the appara- tus and the results in the case. By his request, I then went with him to see the patient mentioned in his report, and after- wards applied, before him and several other medical gentlemen the adhesive plasters and splint, explaining, minutely, the de- sign of all the parts, separately, and as a whole. It was abundantly evident from his remarks, that he had never had any conception of the principle upon which the treatment was based; the course pursued by him after this is so well known to the Surgical Section of the New York Acad- emy of Medicine, to the members of the New York Medico- Chirurgical College, and is even made so manifest in the fore- going review, that I may spare myself the disagreeable task of uttering reproach against him. The following is an extract from a review of A Treatise on Diseases of the Joints, by Richard Bar well, etc., etc., in the American Medical Monthly, December, 1861: Of the chapters ou Strumous Articular Osteitis and Hip-Joint Disease, we can say that they, of all others in the book, both please and disappoint us most. We are pleased to find Dr. Barwell follow the right path; we are disappointed to find that he is not fully con-