THE CONQUEST OF DISEASE 



Much of the surgery of the abdomen has 

 been developed by operations upon man which 

 must properly be called experimental. The 

 surgery of ulcers of the stomach and duo- 

 denum; perforating typhoid ulcers; intestinal 

 obstruction from hernias, adhesions, volvulus, 

 and intussusception; peritonitis; appendicitis; 

 obstructions of the gall ducts ; and many other 

 conditions peculiar to man have had to have 

 their treatment worked out in the human abdo- 

 men. The fact that the mortality from all of 

 these diseases is being enormously reduced as 

 time goes on should cause the regret that those 

 early patients had to be sacrificed to the gain- 

 ing of experience ; but all perfection in technic 

 is worked out through painstaking elimination 



It means much to human life in the working 

 of error and development of minutia. 

 out of this perfection, that wherever the dead 

 body of man or the living lower animal can be 

 used for investigation these two sources of 

 information have been called upon. But even 

 yet there is too little of the post mortem exam- 

 ination and too little animal experimentation 



occasionally discloses no disease. Operation should be done 

 upon the suspicion of the disease, with the view of making a 

 diagnosis either of cancer or of no cancer: if the first con- 

 dition is found, operation offers much hope; if the latter con- 

 dition is found, so much the better. 



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