The morbid anatomy of the gullet, stomach, and intestines / by Alexander Monro.

Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The morbid anatomy of the gullet, stomach, and intestines / by Alexander Monro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    peculiarities ot the disorder, and liis inability to discover tlic root of the mischief, and the means of eradicating it. A few trials would convince him of the necessity of sub- mitting to the task of examining the succession of morbid changes characteristic of the disease, by the repeated dissection of patients who had been its victims ; or, at least, of directing his attention to the exhibition of these changes in morbid anatomical preparations, and to the description of the modes of treatment which the series of appearances had suggested. This first law of the healing art, strongly impressed on the mind of Celsus, led him to deliver the following observation in the form of an axiom :—“ Bum recte curaturum, quern priraa causae origo non fefellerit.” In truth, that practitioner only who has accustomed himself to trace, by dissection, the progress of diseases, or who has devoted his attention ,to those morbid spe- cimens which exhibit and explain the results of dissec- tion, can be qualified either to distinguish their nature and progress, or to form a just prognosis, and proper in- dications of cure. On the same principle, the surgeon acquainted witli the under abdominal aperture only in its healthy state, must be greatly embarrassed while performing tlic ope- ration of Inguinal Hernia ; for in such a case, that aper- ture retains neither its former size nor situation ; and when to these sources of embarrassment arc superadded the great changes produced upon the displaced bowels, and their coverings, his ])erplexity must be proportion- ally increased. With regard to tlic last disease to wliicli I alluded, the Stricture of the Urctlira, some of the valuable remarks which occur in tlie treati.se of Sir E. Home, appear to me to apply with particular force to the condition of those