Volume 2

The first lines of the practice of surgery : designed as an introduction to students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners / By Samuel Cooper.

  • Cooper, Samuel, 1780-1848.
Date:
1819-20
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first lines of the practice of surgery : designed as an introduction to students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners / By Samuel Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    upon this important operation have not yet been noticed in any English publication, with which I happen to be acquainted. The rules, which these authors have laid down for the performance of litho- tomy with a knife, are founded upon the basis of anatomy, the only safe and certain guide, and ai e marked by a degree of precision and perspicuity rarely accompanying the directions, which othei practical writers have given upon the same subject. In the chapter on fractures, the reader will find a description of a very superior apparatus for the treat- ment of the broken neck of the femur. For this invention, which is remarkable, as well fox the sim- plicity of its principles, construction, and application, as for its efficacy in keeping the limb constantly m the most eligible position, the profession are indebted ' to the ingenuity of Hagedorn, the contents of whose valuable treatise on Fractures of the Neck of the Thigh-bone appear not to be at all known m this country. Just at the moment, when I was about to collect the sheet which treats of these accidents, the last number of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal was put into my hands, containing Mr. Liston’s case of a bony reunion of a fracture of the neck of the femur within the capsular ligament. 1 had therefore merely the opportunity of making a brief note of the occurrence, as a proof of the possi- bility of such a fracture being reunited by means of callus. But, upon further enquiry, I find, that the preparation, of which Mr. Liston spea s’ ^\as sc!m<j time ago presented to the Medical and Chiiuigica Society of London, and, after being carefully ex- amined by several intelligent members, was pro- nounced by them not to be an unequivocal specimen of a fracture within the capsular ligament. I notice the circumstance here, because the point, to v uci it refers in surgery, is of some importance, am oug i not to be thought settled, until evidence is brought forwards, with which every good judge is fully satis-