ANCIENT AND MODERN SURGERY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1722, 12 April 1913, Page 8

ANCIENT AND MODERN SURGERY.

SPLINTS SIX THOUSAND YEARS OLD. Dr. F, M, Sandwith lectured recently at the Kensington Town Hull before a meeting of the ltesearch Defence Society on "Ancient and Modern Surgery," Mr. Stephen Paget being in tho chair. A uuinusr ot lantern slides we're exhibited. Tlio first sliuo snown represented a picture of tne oluest pnysician wnoto existence, was known, wno nad practised at tne Court of ruaraoh of tne ju'utn Dynasty übuut sii. thousand years ago. Illspopularity wim lus master had apparently- been great, lor tlio X J naraoh nau given an order tnat h6 should be supplied witn slabs of stone for his tomb suunar to those ne was having prepared lor himsell. liis private liru nau evidently been less happy, lor in every case the name of his wnu had/been erased. The piiotograpns ot the splints found in tho Auburn deserts were, the lecturer said, similar in principle to those of tho present day, and tho knots used to keep tnein in piace were reel' knots, tho same as those now- taught to students. Tho bandaging, as to-day, was done so that tho loids crossed at right angles, with a view to their being kept in place, i'aiin fibre! was used to serve tho iuuction of cotton, wool, aud lino linen to take tho placo of gauzo. l'are, ho continued, wno worked in the Sixteenth Century, was a soldier-surgeon ol' tho best type. Ho was a man who had never arrogated to himself tho power of healing, anil writing in liis diary of an oiiicer who had been struck in tne chest with a shell, ho' made the entry that was typical ol' him; "I dressed his wounds, God cured him." There was the story, too, of Pare, trying to get some substitute for the invariable practice of treating shqt wounds with boiling oil. On one occasion the oil ran short, and Pare, forced to try a substitute for his wounded, spent a sleepless night. On finding them in the morning happy and without inflammation, ho exclaimed, "I will never again put boiling oil into theso men's wounds," and persuaded his colleagues to follow his example. • To Pare, too, they owed tho innovation of tying tho arteries instead of cauterising tho stump of the limb. Tho instruments of tho kind woro clirious, with strangely decorative handles, but little attention was paid to tho problem of .designing them, so they might easily bo kept clean. Several photographs wero shown of the methods which used to be adopted for reducing dislocations by means of pulleys, before it had been found that a small dose of chloroform would relax the muscles and make tlio patient unconscious during the process. When he was a student, the lecturer mentioned, the pulley system was still in vogue. Of several pictures thrown upon . the screen, the most striking was that for reducing a dislocated shoulder. The patient stood on a stool with his arm over . a ladder. An assistant stood on another stool so placed as to be able to throw his weight on . the upper _ portion of tho shoulder. • Another friend pulled the arm down. At the critical moment someone quickly took away the stool on which the patient was standing, aud if the proceeding was successful tho arm went back with a click. Paracelsus, Dr. Sandwith said, had been called tho Luther of medicine, because while Luther had burnt the Papal bull, Paracelsis had burnt tho works of Galeri. Paracelsus was a defender of research. lie' urged his students to go out and study tho patients, fx- refuso to accept tlio idea that tlie internal arrangements of a man and a pig wero the same, but to see if they,were so by dissection. Michael Servetus had helped to discover tho circulation of tho blood, but ho aroused tho old Adam in Calvin becausp he would not accept the orthodox views as to the doctrine ot the Trinity. Calvin had had him burnt in effigy, and then had him burnt at tho stake, but ho had died calling "out:. "Jesus, son of Eternal God, have .mercy; It jiyas a credit to Calvin's followers that foiir hundred years later they had set up a etatuo with an inscription stating that while they still thought highly of Calvin, they had erected a monument in expiation of, that one mistake. Dr. Sandwith showed portraits of Vesalius, the anatomist, who preached the merits' of dissection, of Henry , IV touching for king's evil, iliis action forming a striking contrast with that '<;f tho present King in establishing a sanatorium at Midhurst, of Henry VIII giving their charter to the College of Surgeons, of John Hunter, who wrote to Jenner when he was downcast from having lost tho lady of liis affections, and said- "Cheer up, man, forget her. I will employ you with hedgehogs," and of Sir James Poget, who had bidden tho clerics to stick to their last and not meddle with such questions as vivisection and surgery, of which they knew nothing,' warning them that tho time might comewhen the doctors might arise and enter tho Church and tell them some things they thought they ought to know. And now there was tho arch enemy of the medical profession who seemed .to have designs upon the Church in Wales. In conclusion. Dr. Sandwith contrasted the ancient and modem operating theatres, showing, that, tho innovations were duo to flip genius of. Lord' Lister, who had met with strenuous opposition. He told his audieice that as late as 1871 i wheal, its a student,' he had been, asked to "get up. this Lister business," ho had had to write to Edinburgh for it. At 'the conclusion of ,the lecture, Mr. Stephen Paget appealed,' on behalf of the society, for personal help and for subscriptions.