On gun-shot wounds of the extremities, requiring the different operations of amputation, with their after-treatment: establishing the advantages of amputation on the field of battle. To the delay usually recommended, &c. &c &c., with four explanatory plates / By G. J. Guthrie.

  • Guthrie, G. J. (George James), 1785-1856.
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On gun-shot wounds of the extremities, requiring the different operations of amputation, with their after-treatment: establishing the advantages of amputation on the field of battle. To the delay usually recommended, &c. &c &c., with four explanatory plates / By G. J. Guthrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and without waiting for the event of any other kind of treatment, for if the patient be weak, old, or very ill, even with the consequences of the wound, they do not venture upon the operation.” This is not however the practice of the English surgeons, Wiseman and Ranby, or of Le Dran, who precisely declare, the operation should be per- formed on the first day, and not within a few days of the accident; and this, with other statements, induces me to believe, that he had never fairly tried the practice, and was therefore unqualified to decide against its efficacy. In consequence of this opinion, he suffered no amputations to be performed in the Prussian army, and gives the following statement of his success : “ I had at one time during the war in a military hospital 6618 wounded patients, who were all treated according to my direction, and part of whom I attended myself. Of these 5557 were perfectly cured ; 195 were able to do duty in per- son, or to work at any trade; 213 remained in- capable of any labour civil or military; and 653 died. The 195 and 213 invalids were of the number of those who had their bones broken and shattered, of those, in a word, ^Jhose wounds were called complicated and dangerous. At page 61, he supposes, of the 653 that died, 408 only died from shattered bones, the remainder of fevers, fluxes, and other injuries.” He then says, “ this number