New elements of operative surgery / by Alf. A.L.M. Velpeau, carefully revised, entirely remodelled, and augmented with a treatise on minor surgery ; illustrated by over 300 engravings, incorporated with the text, accompanied with an atlas in quarto of twenty-two plates, representing the principal operative processes, surgical instruments ; translated by P.S. Townsend. Augmented by the addition of several hundred pages of entirely new matter, comprising all the latest improvements and discoveries in surgery, in America and Europe, up to the present time. Under the supervision of, and with notes and observations by Valentine Moth.

  • Velpeau, A. (Alfred), 1795-1867.
Date:
1845-1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New elements of operative surgery / by Alf. A.L.M. Velpeau, carefully revised, entirely remodelled, and augmented with a treatise on minor surgery ; illustrated by over 300 engravings, incorporated with the text, accompanied with an atlas in quarto of twenty-two plates, representing the principal operative processes, surgical instruments ; translated by P.S. Townsend. Augmented by the addition of several hundred pages of entirely new matter, comprising all the latest improvements and discoveries in surgery, in America and Europe, up to the present time. Under the supervision of, and with notes and observations by Valentine Moth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

    8/930
    PREFACE TO THIS FIRST TRANSLATION AND FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF VELPEAU'S OPERATIVE SURGERY. BY P. S. TOWNSEND, M. D. If I were addressing myself to those who have read and studied the great work of Professor Velpeau on Operative Surgery, it would be quite superfluous to dilate upon its merits. For its general reception as a classical production, written with a faultless purity of style, and the unqualified approbation which has been bestowed upon it by those of the profession in Europe, and in this and other countries, who can peruse it in the language in which it is written, are a sufficient evidence and guarantee of the estimation which is attached to it. I believe it may be safely asserted that there was no work more wanted, than one precisely of this description ; for none written upon the plan that the Professor of Paris has adopted, has, as far as I am acquainted, ever before been offered to the public. For the most part, general works on surgery, whether issued from the English, French, or German press, have the fault of being either too voluminous and unsystematized for common use, as elementary treatises either for students or practitioners, or they are too circumscribed and exclusive in their objects, being in most cases confined to specialities, as, for example, to certain branches or depart- ments only of surgery, to general views on the anatomy of relations, surgical an- atomy, surgical pathology, monographs on this or that disease, &c, all of which, however, are extremely useful in their place, and requisite to be completely mas- tered in detail by all those who wish to arrive at any distinction in their profession. There was wanted a work which should embrace all the general axioms, precepts, and facts of Operative Surgery and of Surgical Anatomy, absolutely essential to an elementary treatise, and systematized and arranged upon some natural and well- defined principles, which should be in perfect concordance with the known laws and structure of the human organization. Such a work is that of M. Velpeau, as contrasted with all others. In this work the author has shown how requisite it is that in every book on a vast scientific subject like that of Operative Surgery, the whole fabric should be constructed and sustained upon some approved philosophical plan, conformable to the received axioms of anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and the different parts or subdivisions of which should grow out of, or be developed, one from the other, so that the entire edifice should form a perfect whole in itself; while all the details should be in such necessary connection, harmony, and proportion with each other, that as in the study of the living human organization itself, each one should in some sort be an exponent or co-relative of all the rest. We conceive that M. Velpeau has happily and fully attained this desideratum— and that but very little is wanting to make his work one of such standard value that no public school or university in medicine, and no individual practitioner or student, can hereafter possibly dispense with it. The peculiar fitness which the author possesses for such an undertaking, is seen in the sound and well-disciplined mind with which he is gifted by nature—his ample