DEVELOPMENT IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 377 



mosaics, pottery, and physics, there are what we style "lost arts," 

 as Wendell Phillips so eloquently has told us, contributions from 

 which have come down to us from the past, which cannot be dupli- 

 cated in the present. In painting, for instance, the superb color- 

 ing of the ancients in their Tyrian purple, and the brilliant scarlet 

 which fades not in centuries. In sculpture, the majestic chiseling 

 of Michael Angelo, that crumbles not in ages. In mosaics, the fus- 

 ing of gold and glass so that the yellow of the precious metal retains 

 its perfect color. In pottery, a variety of delicate tints and grace- 

 ful forms which baffle the skill of the potter in these modern times. 

 In physics, the pyramids of Egypt how were the huge blocks 

 of stone ever carried to the summit, some of them nearly 500 feet 

 above the desert sands, to be laid there in courses which are abso- 

 lute in regularity and evenness? How were the gigantic monoliths 

 of Baalbec cut out of the mountains and set high in the walls of 

 the Temple of the Sun? How were the mighty obelisks, 16 cen- 

 turies B. c., transported from the distant quarries, and then set 

 on end with perfect exactitude? Or how was the massive capital, 

 weighing 2000 pounds, ever lifted to its place on the top of Pom- 

 pey's Pillar, 100 feet in the air? All these "are forcible illustrations 

 of arts which have been been lost. 



But in the science of surgery it is wholly different, and there is 

 no such counterpart. No operation, no invention, no discovery in 

 this domain that was worth the keeping has ever been lost. The 

 truth is, surgery, as it is practiced nowadays, is so completely a 

 modern science that it does not rely upon anything in the distant 

 past for its present or future development. That distant past was 

 dark with horrible things which may well be tumbled into oblivion. 

 It is only a few decades ago that surgery emerged from the black 

 period of ignorance and cruelty and took to itself a new face and 

 another spirit and form. At once it began its onward march, which 

 speedily became a triumphant one, difficulties giving way before 

 it, obstacles being overcome, every step an advance, with here 

 and there a milestone set up to mark some distinguished feature 

 in the splendid progress. By this new science diseases, which were 

 formerly attended by 100 % of mortality, are now accompanied 

 by almost 100 % of recoveries. In fact there is no surgical disease 

 whose mortality has not been reduced. No other science can show 

 such brilliant achievements, and no other science can demon- 

 strate its ability to save so many human lives or to ameliorate their 

 condition. We live in an age that is marvelous for its discoveries 

 and achievements, but in no department of science have greater 

 changes been wrought or more brilliant results accomplished than 

 in surgery. It would now seem that we had almost reached the 

 goal. There are but few surgical diseases which our art in its pre- 



