Volume 1

The history of the lateral operation, or an account of the method of extracting a stone, by making a wound near the great protuberance of the os ischium ... first attempted by Frère Jacques ... and afterwards by Professor Rau ... With a postscript concerning the introduction and improvement of this method here in London / By James Douglas.

  • Douglas, James, 1675-1742.
Date:
1726
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the lateral operation, or an account of the method of extracting a stone, by making a wound near the great protuberance of the os ischium ... first attempted by Frère Jacques ... and afterwards by Professor Rau ... With a postscript concerning the introduction and improvement of this method here in London / By James Douglas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/96 (page 4)
    cm In them, as bell fuited the Genius of particular Operators, the Con¬ dition of the Patients, or the Humour of the Times ; and in all thefe the Parijian Lithotomies muft be allowed to have had the principal Hand. In the Year 15 61, De Francois Treat! feof Hernias, &c. was firft pub- iifhed, and in that he gives an Account of a new Method he once made ufe of in order to extract a Stoney all the others proving ineffectual, and that was by making an Incifion above the Os Pubis. Tho5 the Opera¬ tion fucceeded, yet he thinks fit to diftwade all Perfons from ever fol¬ lowing his Example, and indeed his Advice was fo far comply’d with, that for above Twenty Years after his Book appeared. Authors are as entirely filent about this extraordinary Operation, as if it had never been known ; and in all Probability would have continued fo much longer, had not a lucky Chance engaged a Pcrfon of Roffetus3 s Learning and Sagacity, to undertake the introducing of the Cafarean Operation : For, in order to recommend this unheard-of and dangerous Fradice, one Method this great Man thought it for his Purpofe to take, was to compare it with fome others then in Ufe ; and, amongft the reft, with the common ways of Cutting for the Sto'fre. This led him to fo clear and terrifying a View of the Cruelty and Barbarity of both of them, that a Perfon of his Talent for Invention needed no more to put him upon the Search of a New one, and the Pains he had been at to conft- der the Nature and Confequences of Wounds in the Abdomen, was un¬ doubtedly what gave him the firft Hint of that which he invented. De Franco muft indeed be own’d to have piiblifhed an Inftance of this Ope¬ ration lofig before Roffetus endeavoured to introduce it: But Roffetus is not for that Reafon to be denied the Glory of having invented it; for, to fay nothing of the Circurriftances of De Francos Stoty, which every body is now fufficiently acquainted with, Roffetus was led to the Theory he eftablifhed by the meer Force of his own Judgment, his Knowledge of the Strudure of the Parts concerned, in Which he exceeded all that Went before him, Vefalius himfelf not excepted, and Confequences drawn from Fads, among which that mention’d by Franco appears to have no Place, Roffetus having difcoVer’d his Method before ever he had feen that Author’s Book, as he affirms himfelf, and in a manner that gives not the leaft ground to fufped him of a Falfhood. But if it fhould be granted that he took the firft Hint of his Me¬ thod from Frattcd, he muft ftill be allowed by all who have read and under-