Elements of operative surgery / translated from the French of A. Tavernier ; with copious notes and additions by S.D. Gross.

  • Tavernier, A. (Alphonse), -1850.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of operative surgery / translated from the French of A. Tavernier ; with copious notes and additions by S.D. Gross. 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.)

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    INTRODUCTION.* Surgery has been by many considered to be that branch of medicine, which principally effects the cure of diseases by the application of the hand alone, the employment of instruments, or the use of topical remedies. But although this definition certainly conveys to us some idea of the nature of this most useful profession, it is not entirely accurate as applied to the present state of practice. It might, indeed, be correct during that short unfavoured period of surgery upon the Continent, some centuries ago, when its practice was denounced by the Council of Tours, as unfit for the hands of priests and men of literature, and when the surgeon became little better than a sort of professional servant to the physician, the latter alone not only having the sole privilege of prescribing internal me- dicines, but even that of judging and directing when surgical operations should be performed. Then the subordinate sur- geon was only called upon to execute with his knife, or his hand, duties which the more exalted physician did not choose to undertake; and, in fact, he visited the patient, did what was required to be done, and took his leave of the case, altogether under the orders of his master. In modern times, however, the good sense of mankind has discovered that surgery is de- serving of an eminent rank amongst such arts as ought to be cultivated for the general benefit of society; that the man who is not himself accustomed to the performance of operations, can not be the best judge of their safety and necessity; and that, in every point of view, the surgical practitioner merits as much favour and independence in the exercise of his profession as he whose avocation is confined to physic. Hence, the surgeon is now exclusively consulted about many of the most important diseases to which the human body is liable. Being no longer under the yoke of the physician, he follows the dictates of his own judgment and knowledge; he prescribes whatever medi- cines the case may demand, internal as well as external; and under the encouragement of an enlightened age, he sees his profession daily becoming more scientific, more respected, and more extensively useful. By some writers, physic is said to have for its object the treatment of internal; surgery, that of external diseases. The * The introduction, containing a history of surgery, has been taken almost verbatim from the last edition of Mr. Cooper's Dictionary, published in Lon- don in 1825.—S. I). G.