AN INTERESTING CASE OF MELANOSIS. 
205 
man can bind himself I am pledged to this; and therefore, to say 
a tumour could only be excised as an experiment, was verbally to 
pronounce its removal by surgical operation and under ordinary 
motives an impossibility. It therefore remains to inquire, what 
there was to prevent or to oppose the use of the knife as a means 
of shortening or alleviating agony I It was with the design of be¬ 
nefiting the animal, and literally doing to it what I myself, under 
similar circumstances, would be done to, that the operation was by 
me proposed; and it remains to shew that it was neither so danger¬ 
ous as to make the result unusually doubtful, or so severe as to 
render it extraordinarily cruel. 
First, as to the size. On man many tumours of much greater 
proportional dimensions are taken away by the surgeon, and the 
system of the human being does not so well endure or so speedily 
repair invasions as does that of the horse. I have seen tumours of 
greater weight, and surfaces of larger extent, interfered with, and 
nevertheless the life survive; and there is not one of those who in 
this case talked of impossibility, but must be able to cite instances 
corroborative of my assertion. The size was little, when compared 
with the huge frame of the animal on which the operation was to 
be performed, and of it I will say no more, since I have yet to 
learn that any of the gentlemen who saw the limits of possibility, 
meant that by the crown of a man’s hat ability was circumscribed. 
The size, therefore, not being important, I am unwilling to 
credit that, either within the College walls or out of them, any 
regularly educated practitioner conceived that the situation of the 
growth presented any obstacle to its removal. I saw the tumour 
more than once, and I have often thought of it; but in sincerity I 
declare, that, had I choice of place, I do not know on what part of 
the body the structure could be fixed so very favourably for the 
operator. There was not a nerve or artery to fear—not even 
a vessel to avoid or ligature ; and hence the knife could with se¬ 
curity be employed with speed. One-third of the tumour rested 
on the loins; two-thirds reposed on the muscles of the abdomen. 
Over the longissimus dorsi there is stretched a thick dense 
covering, the fascia lumborum ; and as such structures are slow 
to be involved, and devoid of sensibility, from this we may sup¬ 
pose the tumour would have been raised almost as from a table. 
Over the abdominal parietes is extended the elastic covering of 
the external oblique, which sheaths and encloses all the internal 
parts. Upon this, more lowly organized than the fascia of the 
back, the larger portion of the tumour laid, and from it the growth 
might with the finger have been peeled off. The quantity of 
cellular tissue that lies beneath the panniculus makes the mind 
certain that the parts below would not quickly be implicated or 
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