Memoir of D. Hayes Agnew, M.D., Ll.D. : prepared at the request of and read before the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, January 4, 1893 / by J. William White.

  • White, J. William (James William), 1850-1916.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir of D. Hayes Agnew, M.D., Ll.D. : prepared at the request of and read before the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, January 4, 1893 / by J. William White. 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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    employed for forty years. He was among the first to advocate the extension of the field of operative interference in fractures of the skull, one of the innumerable advances which antisepsis made possible. He performed nephrectomy and laryngectomy, supra-pubic lithotomy and prostatectomy, nerve grafting and other operations which were popular- ized only after he had reached an age when, upon many minds, a new idea has the effect of a foreign body upon the grosser tissues, and is either encapsulated and disappears or sets up irritation and is extruded. While Sir Henry Thompson was impeding the acceptance of litholapaxy by the profession in Great Britain, Dr. Agnew, although one of the most accomplished and successful of lithotomists, was employing it in the majority of his cases of calculus. He attacked brain tumors, tried the modern methods for the radical cure of hernia (though he had pre- viously devised, employed and cast aside as useless a method of his own), removed the appendix both during attacks of inflammation and in the interval, employed the most recent technique in the treatment of ununited fracture, and in every direction kept fully abreast of the times up to the very week of his death. On the other hand he could not be induced to attempt operations which his judgment did not approve, and his last important paper, a judicial review of the results obtained by local surgeons in various forms of cerebral disease and injury, was written partly with a view of establishing the uselessness of certain procedures which he believed to be uuphilosophical and unjustifiable. He thought the evidence showed that he was correct, but if future experience had demonstrated the con- trary to be true it is safe to say that he would have been one of the first to admit it. I have already alluded to his behavior in reference to his own operation for the cure of hernia. A still more striking illustration, however, of his fair-mindedness is to be found in his attitude toward a question of public policy which, on account of the apparent conflict between hygiene and morals involved has always excited the bitterest contention. I allude to the so called “ Contagious Diseases Acts,” the recognition and regulation of prostitution by the State. Everything in Dr. Agnew’s religious training and association, and many elements of his personal character, tended to lead him into the ranks of the opposi- tion, where are to be found in every country where the subject has been discussed the large majority of the clergy and a small minority of our profession. In 1882, however, when he was 64 years of age, he wrote : “At one time I was disposed to take sides with the opponents of pros- titution laws ; but on a more comprehensive and careful study of the subject, and especially of the results which have been reached in those countries where such legal regulations are in operation, I am forced to believe that the evil is one which comes legitimately within the province of civil law.”