The principles and practice of operative surgery.

  • Skey, Frederic C. (Frederic Carpenter), 1798-1872.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of operative surgery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    meclianic. Each extreme argues ignorance of Nature, lier power, and her laws. The moral feeling of the operating surgeon is more in- volved in the establishment of a just reputation than the world at large imagines; at least, if it be required that both the design and the execution of an operation devolve on his single responsibility. A surgeon may be required to step in between life and death; to venture on a large and speculative operation as the only alternative to certain death; and under no condition is it more important that he protect the high name of his profession from the obloquy that so commonly attaches to failure, by extending to the case all the knowledge that can be acquired, by weighing the liabilities in his own scale, and by not yielding his judgment into the hands of those, who, less competent than himself to calculate the danger of the undertaking, and less responsible for the con- sequences of failure, would urge him on to resort to such means as prudence would justly repudiate. These are the class of cases that test the moral tone, as well as the professional competency, of the surgeon, because success depends less on the power to manipulate than on the knowledge of the vital forces involved in the economy, and no less on his possession of judgment, and honor, and a spirit of independence, by which he may the better judge ; attributes that should maintain him above such influence as would render him a mere instrument in the hands of others, less competent than himself to foretell the conse- quences of a rash appeal to an uncalled-for and dangerous agency. It may be urged, in furtherance of the proposition.