Abdominal surgery / by J. Greig Smith.

  • Smith, J. Greig (James Greig), 1834-1897.
Date:
[1891?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Abdominal surgery / by J. Greig Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/850
    The time seems to have come when it is proper to gather together and describe in systematic manner the surgical operations usually spoken of as abdominal. Of some abdominal operations it may truly be said that no complete descriptions have as yet appeared; others are described only in isolated monographs in scattered periodicals; while a few appear only as casual additions to large works dealing with one special disease or operation. This, I believe, is the first attempt to deal with the practical surgery of the abdomen in one treatise. From the descriptive point of view, the features of abdominal surgery, both in grouping and in detail, lend themselves readily to comprehensive treatment. Most of the operations are per- formed for diseases which come, in the first instance, within the domain of the physician, and the complete and scientific accounts of these diseases—their natural history, in fact—must be looked for in works on general pathology and medicine. In their treatment by operation, the surgeon is associated with the physician for a definite practical purpose; which purpose involves, on the part of the surgeon, not only a general acquaintance with operative details, but a special knowledge of the gross anatomy of the disease, and a technical familiarity with the methods of diagnosis.