Remarks on a treatise on the rectum [by James Syme] / [A.W. Cockburn].

  • Cockburn, Archibald William, 1814-1862.
Date:
[1838?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on a treatise on the rectum [by James Syme] / [A.W. Cockburn]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    8 ture, however, we will regard the hardiest, the strongest, and the healthiest, who is afflicted with fistula, as a weak and diseased victim to a fatal hereditary complaint. Professor Syme has not yet done with phthisis. He has already given us the one early symptom of that disease, and now imparts to us another symptom which can never deceive us. It is summed up in the following brief sentence:-—“ The passage of feculent matter through the preternatural channel is never met with except when the disposition to the disease is very strong, as in confirmed phthisis. Feculent matter escapes by the external aperture in complete fistula, as well as through the natural channel; and if Professor Syme never observed this, his practice must surely have been limited in the ex¬ treme, or he himself must have been grossly negligent, never to have observed what has fallen under the notice of every other surgeon, and what is a matter of constant observation in every hospital. We advise him to be more minute in his observation for the future, or more guarded in his remarks. In proceeding with the symptoms of fistula, he informs us, that people of much sensibility are distressed by a feeling of weakness and imperfection. What a proof of sensibility is here given us! — what a delicate test of the finer feelings of our nature ! One would be almost induced to imagine that Professor Syme, whose “ sensibility’’ is well known, had laboured under fistula himself. An “ eminent physician incurs Professor Syme’s contempt for having overlooked the presence of a fistulous aperture. We think this physician rather hardly treated, because, for any thing we know, he had examined the chest, and finding no consumption, at once made up his mind that there was no fistula. What would the physician say to Professor Syme, who said there was consumption because there was a complete fistula, if — mirabile dictu! — the gentleman’s lungs proved healthy ? No authority, however high, nor the experience of better surgeons than himself, have any weight with Professor Syme. He modestly withholds the name of the “ eminent physician” who overlooked a case of fistula; but no sooner does he find the names of surgeons, from whose writings he ought to have gleaned instruction, holding opposite opinions from his own, than he includes them all in one sweeping censure. The Nestor of Surgery, Sir Astley Cooper-—the distinguished and well known Copeland—and, though last not least, his own teacher Liston, all hold opinions and follow practice which cannot fail, according to Professor Syme’s more extensive experience, to a occasion great unnecessary suffering. It is to be hoped that those surgeons will now see the error of their ways, and, bowing to Professor Syme’s views, alter their mode of treatment. It is espe¬ cially to be hoped that Mr. Liston will feel due contrition for the erro¬ neous doctrines which he inculcated on his quondam pupil, and not be ashamed now to become pupil in his stead. Truly he is in the situation of the venerable gentleman of whom it is sung, that “ To teach his grandson draughts He’d then his time employ, Until at last the old man Was beaten by (he boy.”