Surgical tracts ... Consisting of I. Outlines of the history of surgery. II. An essay on inflammation and abcess. III. A dissertation on the effects of motion and rest, and their application to the purposes of surgery ... by M. David, with copious ... annotations. IV. Observations on counter-strokes. V. On the methods employed in treating cancerous diseases, including remarks on the cure of indurations of the breast / The whole collected and interspersed with occasional notes and observations by William Houlston.

  • Justamond, J. O. (John Obadiah), -1786
Date:
1789
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical tracts ... Consisting of I. Outlines of the history of surgery. II. An essay on inflammation and abcess. III. A dissertation on the effects of motion and rest, and their application to the purposes of surgery ... by M. David, with copious ... annotations. IV. Observations on counter-strokes. V. On the methods employed in treating cancerous diseases, including remarks on the cure of indurations of the breast / The whole collected and interspersed with occasional notes and observations by William Houlston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fet of people ; for in the oath which he required his pupils to take, he makes them fwear that they fhall not cut for the flone, hut leave that ■•V' ' operation to perfons who made it their particular fludy and bufmefs. I cannot difmifs the account of this divine old man, as he is often filled, without fpeaking of the actual cautery, an operation fo much ufed by him, that there is fcarcely any chronic diforder in which he has not recommended it. One circumflance in which he ufed it, is very fin- t gular ; in his book De affeblionibus, we learn, that in the beginning of an afcites he cauterized the belly in eight places, near the region of the liver. When I confider how much this practice has been advifed by all the moft learned and judicious of the ancients, I cannot help thinking that from the frequent and numerous applications of it upon the fame patient, in many obftinate chronic cafes, they mu ft have experienced advantages unknown to the moderns. Perhaps therefore we have little reafon to pride ourfelves upon the entire abolition of this reputed barbarous cuftom. Neither does it appear to have been attended with fo much pain as we are apt to imagine. M. Pouteau, an ingenious Surgeon of Lyons, in his furgical effays, has revived the ufe of it in fome cafes with good fuccefs ; and from the inftances he produces, we may conclude that the pain at- tending the operation is very fupportaBle. So zealous was he indeed for the improvement of the art, that he has frequently tried the application of it upon himfelf; and after his death his body is faid to have been found covered with various fears, as glorious fure to a man in the acquisition of fcience, as thofe which others can boaft of in the purfuit of military fame. If, however, it is even probable that cures, which have baffled all other means, may be effected by this, I think it deferves at lead; our ferious confideration. In the interval of time between Hippocrates and Celsus, many ProfeiTors of Surgery appeared, as we find by the teftimony of Celsus and Galen, as well as of feveral hiftorians. Though fcarcely any of their works are handed down to us, yet, I fhall take notice of fome of them