A dictionary of practical surgery : comprehending all the most interesting improvements ... an account of the instruments ... the etymology and signification of the principal terms ... / by Samuel Cooper ; with numerous notes and additions ... together with a supplementary index ... by David Meredith Reese.

  • Cooper, Samuel, 1780-1848.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of practical surgery : comprehending all the most interesting improvements ... an account of the instruments ... the etymology and signification of the principal terms ... / by Samuel Cooper ; with numerous notes and additions ... together with a supplementary index ... by David Meredith Reese. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

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    *l PREFACE. bodied in the text, in immediate connexion with the subject to which it refers, except where an occasional foot note for obvious reasons has been preferred. To distinguish it from the rest, it is included within brackets, and at the close of each of these additions will be found the surname of the editor. This method of making interpolations in the body of the work may ap- pear less imposing than an array of additions in an appendix at the end of the book, or a display of notes at the foot of the pages, distinguished by asterisks, obelisks, &c.; but they will certainly be found more convenient to the student, and more in conformity to the character of a dictionary. It is from this conviction that this course has been pursued; which, it is hoped, will be satisfactory to the profession. As the work is stereotyped, it will be necessary in future editions to enlarge the appendix, which can be done to any desirable extent, and the Dictionary may thus keep pace with the steady advancement of surgical knowledge in this and other countries. For the purpose of supplying any omissions which may have been inadvertently made, it is intended at first to publish but a small edition, sufficient to supply the present demand, and any communications from American surgeons will receive respectful notice in a future edition, by being included in the appendix at the close of the second volume. Such communications are respectfully solicited, and may be forwarded to the editor without delay. To rescue American surgery from unmerited neglect, and to present to our transatlantic brethren a brief epitome of what is doing in the United States for the promotion and improvement of surgical science, is the object at which the editor has directed this effort. That his task has been imperfectly performed he is fully conscious, nor will he affect to conceal his own misgivings in thus attempting to improve upon the work of one of the master-spirits of the other hemisphere. How far the haste with which the work has been hurried through the press, to supply the great demand which is every where felt and expressed, may have contributed to his imperfections, he will not attempt to determine; perhaps his inexperience in such a vocation may be more plausibly urged. His design, however, is now completed; and he submits the result to his bre- thren in the profession, and to students of this noble science, with no other wish than that it may contribute to elevate our national character, and excite to the still farther cultivation and improvement of surgical literature. DAVID MEREDITH REESE, M.D. New-York, August 22i, 1830.