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 operation, 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 
