Memoirs of the life of a country surgeon.

  • Mantell, Gideon Algernon, 1790-1852.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs of the life of a country surgeon. 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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    were torn to rags, and the femoral vessels exposed; one eye was destroyed, and the scalp over the front of the head, and face, dread- fully lacerated. I applied a tourniquet to each limb; administered cordials; and after a few hours, when the patient had sufficiently rallied, I amputated the fore-arm; a neighbouring practitioner kindly affording me assistance. The amputation of the thigh, which the injury seemed absolutely to require, was not ventured upon in consequence of the extreme exhaustion induced by the previous operation; yet the laceration of the limb was so great, that mortification appeared inevitable. Fortunately the patient recovered, and regained the use of the limb; but my anxiety till all danger was passed, cannot be described. Now had this case occurred in London, the hospital surgeon would have had the co- operation of his colleagues; and if in private practice, one or more eminent surgeons would have been called in, and whatever might have been the result, the responsibility would have been divided, and therefore scarcely felt. _ . Many cases of a like nature came under my cognizance m the practice of my neighbours; for of late years I was often calle into consultation by the surgeons in the towns and villages around me. And I can bear honourable and unbiassed testimony to the skill, humanity, and disinterestedness of those excellent men, whose services were alike unappreciated and most inadequately recom- pensed. Often have I thought my lot hard to bear, till I have seen my professional brethren living in the most humble manner toiling day and night like slaves—excluded from all mtercourse with congenial minds-looked down upon with humiliating con- descension by the rector and squire of the village—and treated with contumely by the wealthy and ignorant; the diameter of Gipeon Guay*, so graphically portrayed by Sir AA alter Scot , indeed no fiction—there are thousands such in the provinces England. .... Compared with the lot of hundreds of country practitioners, my own career may be considered fortunate; yet surely m no otter profession, in no mercantile enterprise, in no trade, would thirty- five years of such unremitting toil have been so poorly remunerated- * Sec Sir Walter Scott’s “ Surgeon's Daughter:’