158 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE 



and cut their throats gently and without ill will to- 

 ward them. 8 



Leaping over three and a half centuries of only moder- 

 ate progress, let us next consider the state of surgery a 

 hundred years ago. No better representative perhaps 

 could be chosen than John Bell, the professor of surgery 

 in Edinburgh, whose "Discourses on the Nature and Cure 

 of Wounds" had reached a third edition in 1812, and his 

 "Principles of Surgery" a new edition in 1826, to which 

 his brother, Sir Charles Bell, also contributed. 



In the former he states that tents or setons were much 

 in use and the surgeons "were quite delighted with see- 

 ing prodigious quantities of matter spouting out when 

 they drew their spigot away" (p. 299). 



As to abdominal wounds he says : 



Having put it down as a prognostic, which is but 

 too well confirmed, by much melancholy experience, 

 that wounds of the belly are mortal, there is no rea- 

 son why we should, in recording our cases, take any 

 note of a man having died after such a wound. Death 

 from such a wound is a daily and expected occurrence 

 and, therefore, is not marked ; but if we find that a 

 man has escaped, are we not to record every such 

 escape? (p. 313). 



Per contra, to-day recovery has been achieved after 

 19 wounds of the abdominal viscera ! 



He considers wounds of the joints also as mortal, and 

 amputations even in the most favorable circumstances did 

 not heal under four, five or six months ! 



In his "Principles of Surgery" 9 he pictures the wards 

 of a hospital as follows : 



8 Paget's Ambroise Part, p. 31. 



9 John Bell's Principles of Surgery, new edition, with com- 

 ments by Charles Bell, London, 1826, p. 86. 



