Lectures on the principles of surgery / by John Hunter ; with notes by James F. Palmer.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the principles of surgery / by John Hunter ; with notes by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    10/408
    geon should approach the victim of his operation without a sacred dread and reluctance, and should be superior to that popular eclat generally attending painful operations, often only because they are so, or because they are expensive to the patient. Mr. Hunter next mentioned his motives for lecturing; showing that he did not do this with a view to pecuniary gain, since the time thus expended might be employed more profitably in extending his connexions and enlarging his practice. I have seen, said he, as much practice, and made a larger collection of diseased prepar- ations than perhaps any man in Europe, all of which I find to cor- respond with the opinions I have formed of the nature of the re- spective diseases. In the years 1761 and 1762, having been already engaged ten years in the profession, I attended the army, without which I should have been unable to give my opinion concerning gunshot wounds, which rarely occur in civil practice. In the year 1768 I was called upon to be a teacher of anatomy, but I congra- tulate myself that I did not become so, as it could not have failed of engaging my attention too much to admit that general attention I have been able to pay to surgery; and the necessity I should have been under to read might have occupied me too much, and prevented my forming habits or established modes of thinking.— In the years 1772, 1773, and 1774, I had frequent opportunities of giving my opinion in private, and had generally the satisfaction to be heard with candour. Since I have lectured, I have scarcely found a pamphlet without some of my opinions, and often my very language, as adhesive and suppurative inflammation, &c. But what more than all induced me to lecture, was the great advantage every one finds by putting his thoughts into writing. A man can never tell how much he knows till he arranges his knowledge, and then he can tell how defective it is; hence it is that almost all the authors of any consideration in physic have been public teachers. In the present lectures it is my intention to begin with the physi- ology of the animal economy in its natural or healthy state ; and then to come to pathology, or the physiology of disease, which may be called the perversion of the natural actions of the animal economy. Amongst the latter I shall treat first of accidents the most simple or natural, or diseases spontaneously arising; next, of the means of restoration, on which I shall be particularly full,—of these the first is adhesive inflammation, commonly called healing by the first intention; then of inflammations tending to suppura- tion, granulation, and cicatrization: after these I shall consider the specific diseases, as locked jaw, scrofula, &c.: the poisons next, as the venereal disease, cancer, &c. Of Matter; and first of the Distinction between Animate and In- animate Matter. I must now beg the close attention of the gentlemen present, as
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3