The annual oration of the Hunterian Society, for 1892 / by Charters J. Symonds.

  • Symonds, Charters James, 1852-1932.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The annual oration of the Hunterian Society, for 1892 / by Charters J. Symonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    opinions, and still more by finding, when he had surmounted this difficulty, that these opinions were, by the malice of man- kind, ascribed to others. All which I think may be fairly inferred from a single sentence he one day addressed to me. ‘ I know,’ he said, ‘ I am but a pigmy in knowledge, yet I feel a giant when compared with these men.’ ” I will now quote a passage in which he sums up many of the points of which he has been treating. It affords an example of his method of generalization ; and here it must be remembered, that this inference is the outcome of many years of thought, of observation on healthy and diseased processes, and of experi- mental investigation. “ As disease is a wrong action of the living parts, the restora- tion to health must first consist in stopping the diseased dispositions and actions, and then in a retrograde motion towards health. “ In treating systematically of such complaints as are the object of surgery, we should always begin with the most simple, and advance gradually to the more complicated, by which means we shall be more clearly understood. “ There are many complaints requiring the attention of the surgeon, which cannot be called disease, because they have been produced by something foreign to the body, as in accidents. They are to be considered as a violence committed upon it, altering in some degree the structure of parts, and consequently interrupting the natural operations already described. “ The parts so hurt, not being able to pursue their original or natural mode of action, are obliged to deviate from it; and this deviation will occur according to the nature of the violence, the nature of the part, and the state of the constitution at the time. An alteration in structure requires a new mode of action for its restoration; as the act of restoration cannot be the same with what was natural to the parts before any alteration had taken place. “ The alteration of structure by violence requires only the most simple change in the natural action of the part to restore it; and of course, the most simple method of treatment by art. Physiological Lecture, p. 199.