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Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds
Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds Author:John Bell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DISCOURSE II. WOUNDED ARTERIES. Of all the fudden accidents which demand the affift- ahce of the furgeon, no one requires fuch abfolute pre. fence of mind,... more » and fuch perfect knowledge of Anatomy, as the bleeding from any great artery. I cannot conceive how a man of real feeling can, in our profeffion, pafs on compofed or eafy hour, without knowing thoroughly the courfe and value of the great arterial trunks. Without this preparation, the furgeon lies continually expofed to accidents, which may, in a fingle moment, ruin his pro- feffional character, and blight all his faireft profpects of fuccefs. Without this knowledge of the blood-veflels, a modern practitioner is much in the condition of thofe who lived in times before the needle was invented, when the furgeon dtlrft not cut the mof t triffing tumor, or did it with fear and trembling; when often an operation apparently eafy, coft the patient his life. But with a due preparation, even the youngeft furgeon now knows bow to fpeak in confultation, and, bow to perform his I) 2 operations,operations; where to be afraid, and where to venture upon a bold and refolute thing. The greater operations are eafily done, while the crofs accidents of practice are the only proper lefts of the furgeon's ikill. Even the few directions which I fhall be able to give in this fhort difcourfe, will bring this appeal to bear ftrongly upon your minds, and will vindicate any thing that I might chufe to fay, either in reproof of negligence, or in praife of diligence, in regard to this the moft important of all ftudies, the ftudy of the blood-veflels! to which Haller and Petit, the greateft maflers in anatomy and in lurgery, had devoted fa much of their labour. The chief queftions in this interefting fubjett, are thefe: 1. What is the real i...« less