My first thoughts on this subject arose from observing what passed
under my own inspection in the military hospitals.
In the first place I remarked, that in a very great number of cases,
where amputation was judged necessary by the physicians and surgeons
of the army, and even by the wounded themselves, in order to preserve
life, it seldom or almost never answered the end.
In the second place, I saw and had under my immediate care, a great
number of patients whose limbs had been carried off by cannon balls,
and in such a manner too, that all those who adhere to, and are afraid
to deviate from established rules, would have performed a fresh
amputation on the remaining stumps, whom I cured, as far as they were
capable of being cured, without having recourse to such disagreeable
means.
And lastly; many others, whose limbs were not intirely separated
off, but so much detached, wounded, shattered and contused, that the
ablest surgeons deemed it necessary to take them wholly off, were
nevertheless, by my endeavours, contrary to the general opinion, cured
without amputation.