I have now finished what I had most material to say, against the
practice which still prevails, of too precipitately taking off the
limbs when they are contused or shattered.
Are my reasons well-founded, or does the method I propose deserve to
be adopted? This I leave to be determined by the judicious reader; for
my own part, I shall never experience any sensation more agreeable,
than the recollection of having saved the lives and preserved the limbs
of so many unfortunate men in our hospitals, whose wounds were of the
kind for which practitioners hitherto have had recourse to amputation;
and it were to be wished, that so many cures happily effected, might
repress that kind of folly, by which, in some countries, surgeons are
excited, and even encouraged by public rewards, to perform frequent
amputations. Another advantage will accrue from this publication, which
is, that all those who judged unfavourably of the surgeons of our
hospitals, on hearing they never employed amputation, will, I hope, lay
aside their prejudices on this score, and may even derive benefit from
our example.