434 BAYARD HOLMES 



devices may have a limited and transient usefulness, they have 

 given an impetus to abdominal surgery which cannot be over- 

 estimated, and they have been followed by simpler methods 

 of more general and permanent application. The whole field 

 of intestinal surgery has been explored and conquered by 

 American surgeons. 



The first successful suture of a perforated intestine oc- 

 curring in the course of typhoid fever was accomplished by 

 Dr. Weller Van Hook, of Chicago, in 1891. 



John Stough Bobbs (1809-1870), of Indianapolis, Indiana, 

 first performed chole cystotomy June 15, 1867. He opened 

 the gall bladder, removed a clear fluid and stones ; the wound 

 closed in four weeks, and the patient was still living and well 

 in 1893. From this small beginning a great army of American 

 surgeons, toward whom it is not prejudicial to especially men- 

 tion James McFadden Gaston (1824-1903), of Atlanta, Geor- 

 gia, Christian Fenger (1840-1901), of Chicago, and WiUiam 

 J. Mayo, of Rochester, Minnesota, have kept the advance in 

 surgery of the biliary tracts well up to the standard of surgery 

 elsewhere in the body. 



The surgery of the ear and eye has been greatly advanced 

 by American operators, but these advances have attracted 

 little general public interest. 



The early history of disease of the appendix (1759-1808), 

 beginning with the classic case of Mestivier, belongs exclusively 

 to France. 



In 1812 Parkinson, of London, published a case in which 

 he recognized at the autopsy that perforation of the appendix 

 was the cause of death. 



In 1827 Melier, a French surgeon, reported five cases of 

 this disease. In a footnote he says: 'Tf it were possible, 

 indeed, to establish the diagnosis of these affections in a certain 

 and positive manner, and to show that they are always entirely 

 circumscribed, the possibility of an operation might be con- 

 ceived; some day, perhaps, tJais result will be reached." 



From 1830 to 1860 great advancement was made in Ger- 

 many in this disease, especially along the line of its symptom- 

 atology. 



Willard Parker, of New York, in 1867 reported four sue- 



