SCIENCE 



[KT. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1068 



The following list I have made — currente 

 calamo — on the instant. 



Amputations are far less frequent. After 

 a single battle in the Russian campaign, 

 Larrey, Napoleon's great surgeon, per- 

 formed not less than 200 amputations. To- 

 day of 200 similar eases, sometimes even 

 with wounds involving joints, the great 

 majority would recover without amputation. 



Formal ligations are far fewer. 



External tumors of any size are now re- 

 moved from all parts of the body without 

 fear of erysipelas, which so worried Sir 

 Astley Cooper before he operated on the 

 king for a simple wen. The mere fact that 

 any tumor is internal — inside the head, the 

 chest, the abdomen, or the pelvis — has prac- 

 tically no influence on the decision whether 

 it should or should not be removed. 



Trephining — even for exploration — is 

 frequent and per se involves slight danger, 

 as in decompression. 



Martin, of Berlin, has done over 1,000 

 ovariotomies, with a mortality of less than 

 2 per cent., and the Mayos from 1905 to 

 1914, inclusive (the only period for which I 

 had the annual reports at hand), reported 

 fi09 cases M'ith 5 deaths, or eight tenths of 1 

 per cent. Colostomy and enterostomy are 

 frequent. Many thousands of hernias 

 have been cured by operation, with practi- 

 cally no mortality; and if done early in 

 strangulation, with slight mortality. 



The new surgery of the head attacks 

 tumors even of the hypophysis, punctures 

 the lateral and the fourth ventricles with 

 impunity, successfully extracts foreign 

 bodies and in some cases relieves epilepsy 

 and mental derangements. 



In the neck simple goiters even of large 

 size are removed, with a mortality of 1 and 

 2 per cent. ; and laryngectomy is common. 



In the chest, that very citadel of life, the 

 heart itself is sutured for gunshot and stab 

 wounds, saving one life out of two; the 



esophagus is attacked for cancer and the 

 removal of foreign bodies; large portions 

 of the chest wall are removed for old 

 empyemas, and the lungs can now be oper- 

 ated on at leisure, thanks to insufflation 

 anesthesia. 



In the abdomen, the various operations 

 on the stomach, even to its total extirpation, 

 are too many to name in detail; and with 

 a success that is truly marvellous. We play 

 with the intestines at will, opening them for 

 foreign bodies and for drainage of the eon- 

 tents, removing what we wish, anastomosing 

 them and short circuiting their contents. 

 Tumors of the liver unless malignant are 

 extirpated with a very low mortality and 

 wounds of its substance are treated with 

 success; gall stones and gall bladders are 

 removed every day; the spleen is anchored, 

 sutured or removed as we find best; the 

 pancreas is no longer inaccessible; the 

 kidney and the ureter, like the stomach, 

 have their own list of operations far too 

 long to rehearse. 



In the pelvis the bladder is opened and 

 partly or even wholly extirpated; the 

 prostate removed ; the uterus, the ovary, the 

 tubes, the parovaria have a long list of 

 life-saving, comfort-giving operations to 

 their credit. 



We suture and anastomose nerves; we 

 suture and anastomose blood vessels even 

 in the new-born, we criss-cross the circu- 

 lating blood to prevent gangrene, and endo- 

 aneurismorrhaphy has practically banished 

 the Hunterian operation for aneurism and 

 saved many a limb and life. We transplant 

 skin and bones and joints, and even half 

 joints, with success. To all these we have 

 added the X-rays, the serum and vaccine 

 treatment of many surgical disorders and 

 are gradually throttling disease, sometimes 

 at its very birth. 



It almost takes one's breath away! Yet 



