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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    action.” We never before beard that the free removal of a part affected with cancer gave a stimulus to the morbid action. Does Professor Syme never excise cancerous ulcerations of the lip, or the cheek, or even the side ? And then comes the following sentence, the coolness of which passes belief: — “ And if there are any cases in which this excision of the rectum has been followed by a perma¬ nent cure, the disease could not have been of a malignant nature.” A plain, positive denial of the truth of this statement is the only answer it deserves. So much for excising the lower part of the rec¬ tum, when affected close to the anus with cancer. Now for another of Professor Syme’s facts: — “ Removal of the extremity of the rectum has of late years been taught and practised in this city, as the best mode of treating those hsemorrhoidal affections which are generally comprehended under the title of prolapsus ani.” To this also we give a plain, positive denial. The statement is untrue : the lower part of the rectum has been excised (and still will be so) in some cases of haemorrhoids, where their magnitude harass and annoy the patient — where the discharge of matter from them render him uncom¬ fortable in the extreme — where the haemorrhage weakens and enfee¬ bles him — and where their size, number, and internal position, cause their removal by the ligature impracticable. Several of such cases have been the subjects of operation, and, despite Professor Syme’s denial of the possibility of a cure being effected, they have been bene¬ fited by the operation. He says he has heard of obliteration of the gut having followed the operation : we never heard of it to our know¬ ledge, and certainly never saw it. In conclusion we must say, that in our opinion this work, through¬ out every page, bears the mark of consummate vanity — and vanity which has no excuse for its intrusion. Had Professor Syme advanced any new theories, or brought forward any new facts which had the shadow of resemblance to reality, one might have passed over the vain tenor of his writing; but when he merely puts down, in an infe¬ rior manner, the same matter which is already in every work on sur¬ gery, and in mostly all on medicine, —-when he tells us nothing new, and mystifies what was well known of old, — we cannot help thinking his book calculated to waste the time and attention of the reader. His reason for writing such a work we know not; but it savours strongly of a jealous, petty mind, anxious to vent its spleen on its superiors. His superiors in age, experience, and wisdom, fall under his censure ; although, with the modesty of affectation, he tells us that ‘c it was not his wish to criticise writers who have preceded him.” Fortunately, his ambition has o’erleaped itself; and the names of, and the quotations from, those writers, tend most distinctly to show the correctness of their views and the vanity of Professor Syme’s empty discoveries; — and his assumed “sensibility,” and eager anxiety for the “ credit of surgery” and the “good of humanity” lead him to run down and stigmatise as “ startling and incredible, ’ as “ dreadful in its performance and effects,” an operation of which he knows nothing, — an operation the occasional necessity for which his stupid mind cannot comprehend, — and an operation which, even though he did under¬ stand, his unsurgical hands could never properly perform.