44 INTRODUCTION. 



infirmary, where the various surgical operations are performed for the relief of 

 patients. The New- York Hospital is the only institution in the state possessing 

 such advantages. This institution was founded in 1770, at the suggestion of Dr. 

 Bard, but the war prevented its being open for the reception of patients until 

 1791. The students of the medical schools in New- York enjoy the advantages 

 it affords. Among the surgeons who have acquired reputation since the revolu- 

 tion, we may name Dr. Wright Post, who has the merit of having, in 1817, first 

 performed successfully the operation of tying the subclavian artery. In 1818, 

 Dr. Mott tied the arteria innominata, in the person of a patient who had a sub- 

 clavian aneurism, an operation never before attempted. The difficulty of per- 

 forming this operation, without fatal consequences, results from its effects to stop 

 almost the whole direct supply of blood from one side of the head, and from one 

 arm. The patient died twenty-six days after the oj)eration, in consequence of 

 secondary haemorrhage ; but it satisfactorily appeared that the ligature had not 

 prevented a necessary supply of blood, and thus one source of apprehension con- 

 cerning this operation was removed. It has been repeated once by Graefe of 

 Berlin. His patient died sixty-seven days after the operation. Dr. Mott, in 

 1827, applied a ligature to the common iliac artery, to cure an aneurism ; an 

 operation never before attempted for that purpose ; and in 1828, he exscinded 

 the clavicle in a case of osteosarcoma of that bone ; an operation, until that time, 

 unknown in surgery. 



Pomeroy White, of Hudson, was the first surgeon in this country who tied the 

 internal iliac artery. We cannot leave these notices of chirurgery, without men- 

 tioning the high merits in that department of Alexander H. Stevens, John C. 

 Cheesman and J. R. Rodgers. 



Physiology has only recently engaged attention in this state. A young Cana- 

 dian received a musket shot in the side, which carried away a portion of the 

 walls of the thorax, and perforated the stomach. He recovered from the effects 

 of this injury under the care of Dr. Beaumont, a surgeon in the army, residing in 

 this state ; but a fistulous opening in the stomach remained, through which articles 



