710 
S U R 
Security against loss or damage; security for payment. 
There remains unpaid 
A hundred thousand more, in .surety of the which 
One part of Acquitain is bound to us. Sha/cspeare. 
Hostage; bondsman ; one that gives security for another; 
one that is bound for another. 
That you may well perceive I have not wrong’d you. 
One of the greatest in the Christian world 
Shall be my surety. Sha/cspeare^ 
SURF, s. [probably from the French surfot , “ the 
rising of billow upon billow, or the interchanged swelling 
of several waves. Cotgrave .] The swell or dashing of the 
sea that beats against rocks or the shore.—Swell is more 
particularly applied to the fluctuating motion of the sea, 
which remains after the expiration of a storm ; and also to 
that which breaks on the shore, or on rocks and shallows, 
called surf. Falconer. —Foam. 
SU'RFACE, s. [surface, old Fr. Milton places the 
accent on the last syllable.] Superficies; outside; superfice. 
Which of us who beholds the bright surface 
Of this ethereous mold, whereon we stand. Milton. 
To SU'RFEIT, v. a. [French, to do more than enough ; 
to overdo .] To feed with meat or drink to satiety and 
sickness; to cram overmuch. 
The surfeited grooms 
Do mock their charge with snores. Sha/cspeare. 
To SU'RFEIT, v. n. To be fed to satiety and sickness. 
—They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that 
starve with nothing. Sha/cspeare. 
SU'RFEIT, s. Sickness or satiety caused by overfulness. 
—When we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our 
own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the 
moon and stars. Sha/cspeare. 
SU'RFEITER. One who riots; a glutton. 
I did not think 
This am’rous surfeiter would have donn’d his helm 
For such a petty war. Sha/cspeare. 
SU'RFEITING, s. The act of feeding with meat or 
drink to satiety and sickness. 
S U R G 
SURGERY, s. [Corrupted from Chirurgery, which is 
derived from the Greek yyto, a hand, and epyov, labour/] In 
its strictest and primary sense, the art of operating manually 
on the human body for the cure of diseases; in its second 
acceptation, it embraced the science of curing the body 
of such maladies, internal or not, as arise in consequence of 
accident or injury. At present surgery implies the art of 
manual operation, the science of pathology, inasmuch as it is 
connected with the well-doing of patients under surgical 
operations, and also several complaints quite unconnected 
with manual operation, but which custom and convenience 
have thrown into the hands of the surgeon. 
The division of the healing art into medicine and surgery 
being marked by a line so far from precise, and being, in 
fact, quite arbitrary, it has been deemed by many unnatural 
and inexpedient. Virtually, the two branches are united in 
the practice of surgeons of the present day; and there are 
some of them who have lent astonishing assistance to the 
science of medicine. Viewed generally, however, it must be 
confessed that if they exhibit no deficiency in practical suc¬ 
cess, yet that in the discrimination of symptoms and rules for 
prognosis in internal diseases they have displayed none of that 
remarkable and accurate observation which has so much distin¬ 
guished English physicians from the time of Sydenham to the 
present day. At the same time we must give the highest meed 
of praise to the surgeons who broke through that absurd 
custom which rendered them the mere mechanical servants 
S U R 
Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; 
Mar not her sense with sensuality. Davies. 
SU'RFEITWATER, s. Water that cures surfeits.—A 
little cold distilled poppywater, which is the true surfeit- 
water, with ease and abstinence, often ends distempers in 
the beginning. Locke. 
SURFLEFT, a village and parish of England, in Lincoln¬ 
shire, situated at the mouth of the river Coin. It has a hand¬ 
some church built of stone, and two free schools; and here 
is one of the largest heronries in the kingdom. Population 
658; 4 miles north of Spalding. 
SURGE, $. [from surgo, Lat.] A swelling sea ; wave 
rolling above the general surface of the water; billow; 
wave. 
The wind-shak’d surge, with high and monstrous main 
Seems to cast water on the burning bear. 
And quench the guards of the ever-fired pole: 
I never did like molestation view 
On the enchafed flood. Shakspcare. 
To SURGE, v. n. [from surgo, Lat.] To swell; to 
rise high. 
The serpent mov’d, not with indented wave. 
Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear 
Circular base of rising folds, that tower’d 
Fold above fold, a surging maze! Milton. 
SU'RGELESS, adj. Without surges; calm. 
In surgeless seas of quiet rest when I 
Seven yeares had sail’d, a pirrie did arise, 
The blasts whereof abridg’d my libertie. Mir. for Mag. 
SU'RGEON, s. [Corrupted by conversation from chi- 
rurgeon. Dr. Johnson. — Surgeon is a very old English 
word; and is no doubt adopted from the ancient French, 
surgien. Todd.] One who practises surgery.—The wound 
was past the cure of a better surgeon than myself, so as 
I could but receive some few of her dying words. Sidney. 
SURtiERES, a small town in the west of France, in the 
department of the Lower Charente. Population 1500. Its 
chief traffic is in the horses of the neighbouring country; 12 
miles north-east of Rochefort, and 21 north of Saintes. 
E R Y. 
of the physician,* and to those who brought the science of 
pathology to the test of anatomical and physiological in¬ 
vestigation. 
In our own time, we have seen a surgeon introduce 
into the practice of medicine as memorable a change as any 
which has been made since the time of Hippocrates. Nor 
have the researches of physicians been lost on the practice of 
surgery; operations have been instituted which entirely 
owed their success to sound views of the resources of the 
animal ceconomy: and the nature and extent of these 
resources had been, in the first instances, discovered by those 
who practised medicine only. In both branches the 
metaphysical acumen of the physician has cleared away 
obscurities in physiological or pathological phenomena, and 
has been of great service in making minute distinctions or 
useful generalizations. While the professors of the surgical 
art, by their facility at dissection, have done immense service 
towards morbid anatomy, and the experiments their chirur- 
gical tact has enabled them to perform on various animals, 
have materially advanced physiology, which is universally 
allowed to be the foundation of pathology. 
It is to be hoped, therefore (whatever petty attempts may 
be made to disturb their harmony), that the physician and 
* Johnson defined a surgeon,—“ One who cures by manual 
operation; one whose duty is to act in external maladies by the 
direction of the physician.” 
surgeon 
