II 



cither omitted or discontinued, than of new, which 

 we have introduced; provided their enquiry were 

 entered upon with an impartial and unprejudiced 



mind. 



3. " To begin with the operation for the stone, 

 there is nobody doubts but they have a right to claim 

 that as their own. Celsus, and many others, have 

 given us exact descriptions of it ; though it must be 

 owned that the method of operation, deserving the 

 preference in many respects, and known by the name 

 of the grand operation, was the invention of Johannes 

 de Romanis, of Cremona, who lived at Rome in the 

 year 1520, and published his work at Venice in 1535. 

 The instrument that we make use of in trepanning, was 

 doubtless first us* d by the ancients, and only rendered 

 more perfectby Woodall andFabricius abAquapendente. 

 Tapping likewise is in all respects an invention of theirs, 

 Lara jgnotomy, Oi the opening of the larynx in the 

 quins y, was practised by them with success ; an ope- 

 ration, which though safe and needful^ is almost out 

 of use at present. 



* 4. " The cure of the Hernia intestinalis, with the 

 distinguishing differences of the several species of that 

 malady, and their method of cure, are exactly de. 

 scribed by the ancients. It was they who taught us the 

 cure of the pterygion and cataract, and treated the 

 maladies of the eye as judiciously as any of our mo- 

 dern oculists, who, if they would act with honour, 

 should confess that they do nothing more but practise 

 over again what those great masters taught. The open, 

 ing of an artery and of the jugular vein, is no more a 1 

 modern invention, than the application of the ligature 

 in the case of an aneurism, which certainly was not 

 well understood even of late by Frederic Ruysh, that 

 celebrated anatomist of Holland. The extirpation of 

 the amygdaies, or of the..uvula, is not at all a late in- 

 vention, though it must be owned the efficacious cau~ 

 teries now used in the case of the former^ were neither 



a 



