MODERN SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS: A Compendium of Current Formulæ,
Approved Dressings, and Specific Methods for the Treatment of
Surgical Diseases and Injuries. By George H. Napheys, A. M., M. D.,
etc. Sixth Edition. Revised to the most recent date. Philadelphia:
D. G. Brinton, 115 South Seventh Street. 1879. Pp. 605. Price $4.00,
in cloth.
This is a companion volume to Napheys’ Medical Therapeutics which we
noticed in our January issue.
The design of this work is to give a careful digest of surgical
therapeutics up to the latest date, and the author has succeeded in
carrying it out. As a work of ready reference it may be compared
favorably with any of a similar character. Discrimination in selections,
however, does not seem to be the aim of the author, but rather to bring
all matters under their heads, leaving the reader to select those best
suited to his needs.
In divesting surgery of its operative procedures, it leaves a
comparatively indifferent number of resources, but the therapeutical
branch is by no means at a stand still.
We are pleased to see that under the head of anæsthetics, chloroform has
been allowed its proper place at the head of the list.
Chloroform “is the most potent of all anæsthetics,” he says, “and its
use is still advocated by many eminent surgeons. Only the alleged
dangers attending it, prevent its exclusive employment. Many of these
arise from its ignorant or heedless administration.” The directions for
its use are given, as also the means of combatting dangers arising from
it. Dr. Napheys might have added with a great deal of truth, that
chloroform should not be administered by any surgeon who is not
habitually on his guard as to the dangers of the anæsthetic state.
The dressing of wounds after the new processes of antiseptic practice
receives a great deal of attention. To one familiar with the dressings
during our civil war, on examination of the present multitudinous plans
to exclude “germs” would bring back the days of our grand-fathers in
surgery with their balms and balsams and salves; and some of the
dressing is not more rational. According to Esmarch (p. 151 and 152) the
dressing of gun-shot wounds should be purely antiseptic. “Do not examine
the wound at all, rather than examine it with unclean fingers—and
everything is unclean, in the strict sense that is not antiseptic.
“* * * * To avoid pernicious putrefactive influences the wounds must not
be touched by the hands, but closed rapidly by antiseptic plugs, in
order to preserve them from the contact of putrefactive agents until
they can undergo the Lister treatment in the hospitals if necessary. He
proposes that every soldier should carry in the lining of his uniform
two balls of _salicylated jute_ wrapped in gauze.”
We make this particular quotation to show to what old-maidish precision
the antiseptic idea is leading good surgeons. This ever-present
inextinguishable “germ” is the evil spirit hovering over every wound.
Nets of gauze are set to protect it; strong odors from the witches
cauldron are summoned to stifle and destroy the malicious fiend.
We are thankful though that the civil surgeon still sees “union by
adhesion,” and “first intention,” and “granulation,” in regions so far
remote from Listerism that there is little hope it will enter there, and
if it does it will hardly captivate the even-minded country surgeon.
When the days of probationary Listerism have ended, we will not be
surprised if the verdict is against it.
But we have digressed from our book. It is the XVIth chapter on
“Diseases of the Skin” that will be often consulted by the busy doctor.
Having made his diagnosis, here is a goodly array of remedial agents,
from the most eminent teachers to help him out of difficulties. We miss
chrysophanic acid in the composition of his formulæ for the treatment of
psoriasis. It certainly has made as much headway in the favor of the
general practitioner as any of the more recent agents.
But why say anything about a book which has made its way through the
world, and has now come to its sixth edition? The hundreds of medical
men who will read it, will traverse a field of surgical treatment far
beyond the facilities of those possessed of the best private libraries.
As long as the author keeps up with the current of surgical treatment,
his book will be sought after. We congratulate the author, and Dr.
Brinton, on the success of this book, and advise our friends to buy it.
A CLINICAL TREATISE ON DISEASES OF THE LIVER. By Fried-Theod.
Frerichs. Prof. of Clin. Med. Uni. of Berlin, &c., &c. In three
volumes. Translated by Charles Murchison, M. D., F. R. C. P.
Physician to the London Fever Hospital. New York: Wm. Wood & Co. 27
Great Jones Street. 1879. 8vo. Pp. 224.
This is the third volume of Wood’s Library of Standard Medical Authors.
For many years this work of Frerich’s has been a classic, although only
known popularly to the American profession by the large number of
quotations made from it by writers on diseases of the liver. Although
the word “Clinical” appears on the title page, it is nevertheless a
systematic treatise which traverses the entire field of clinical
pathology, and embraces also lucid historical accounts of the phases of
change which medical men have passed through on their way to the
knowledge of the present day.
This book, more than any we have been called upon to review, shows how
much German authors rely upon the authority of their own people.
References everywhere abound, but for the most part to German works. We
do not mention this as a fault, but to make the contrast with American
authors who seem to glory in going far away from home for authority
among the unspeakable names of the Russian and German gentry.
Prof. Frerich’s work for this reason will be more valuable to American
students who wish to know the state of pathology in Germany in regard to
“the great gland.”
As, of course, no American physician can now forego the pleasure and
duty of making Frerich’s on the Liver one of his working tools, we leave
them to judge if we are mistaken in saying that it is a master-piece.
Dr. Charles Murchison is the translator, and his preface serves to
elucidate many points, and to bring the work up to the present advanced
state of pathological and physiological knowledge. It is not necessary
to say anything commendatory of the author of Functional Diseases of the
Liver, as every Southern physician will have found a good friend and
counsellor in this volume already.
To subscribers this work is sold at $1.00, a very low price!
THE DISEASES OF LIVE STOCK and their most efficient remedies:
Including Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Swine. By Lloyd V. Tellor, M. D.
Philadelphia: D. G. Brinton, 115 South Seventh St. 1879. Pp. 469.
Price $2.50.
Diseases of the domestic animals deserve more study from the medical
profession than they receive. Medical men even now submit their horses
to the treatment of the neighborhood blacksmith and farrier, whose
ignorance and brutality is all but universal, rather than inform
themselves of the phenomena of brute diseases; in fact, some medical men
hold it as beneath their dignified calling to give their attention to
such affairs. Fortunately now a better day is dawning, and books like
this will do a great deal towards enticing physicians into this
neglected field. There is no practice that promises such profitable
returns as the educated and skillful management of diseases of domestic
animals.
We advise our friends in the country to put this volume side by side on
their book-shelves with Youatt, and soon the latter would be but a
shelf-keeper alongside their new acquaintance.
The point of view from which the study of the diseases of domestic
animals is growing in importance, is the relation of their diseases to
ours.
To be able to detect measly beef and mutton is an accomplishment that
every physician should acquire, now that we know that tape-worm has its
origin there. And we should also be stimulated to earnest enquiry when
we remember what great results JENNER brought out of the study of
cow-pox.
BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE NORTH CAROLINA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND
DUMB AND THE BLIND. From January 1st, 1877 to January 1879. 32d and
33d Sessions. Raleigh: Published by order of the Board of Trustees.
The last Legislature was famous for fault-finding, but had nothing but
praise for the Institution presided over by Mr. Gudger. His report shows
good work done, and common sense ideas of the theories of the methods of
teaching of those unfortunates under his care.
Mr. Gudger reviews the arguments of the advocates of the Manual method,
and the Articulation method, of instructing deaf mutes as follows:
“There is a ground, however, upon which the advocates of each system can
meet and agree. In most of the larger institutions articulation has been
introduced and is a success, when the class to be instructed consists of
those who, having heard in childhood and learnt to speak, have become
deaf (and so are in danger of losing what speech they have) or of those
who are partly deaf and consequently not able to catch the delicate
shades of sound in different words similar to each other. As these
persons have some language to build upon, and an idea of sound, it is
comparatively easy, by means of the skillful methods in use, to improve
and advance their knowledge in this particular, especially as the
teacher may use the _known_ in getting at the _unknown_; but to attempt
to teach articulation to an ordinary congenital deaf-mute, is to spend
valuable time in that which gives promise of little fruit. In other
words, as our matter-of-fact American people would express it, ‘_It does
not pay._’”
The entire report shows that the management is in the hands of a
courageous and enthusiastic worker,—one not too much engrossed with the
beautiful theories of his profession—who shows practical results instead
of learned dissertations.
LECTURES ON PRACTICAL SURGERY. By H. H. Toland, M. D. Professor of the
Principles and Practice of Surgery, &c., &c., in the University of
California. Second Edition. Illustrated. Philadelphia: Lindsay &
Blakiston. 1879.
This is a handsome volume of 520 pages, written by a teacher of surgery
of great celebrity on the Pacific slope. It consists of lectures as
delivered in the Medical College of the University of California,
reported by a stenographer. The first edition of this book, although it
was treated rather severely by the critics has found ready sale, the
present being the second edition.
It is not difficult to see that Dr. Toland is an original teacher of
merit, bound down by no school, nor easily captivated by innovations. He
is confident of his powers and does not speak with uncertain meaning.
Under the head of fractures of the thigh, the apparatus in favor with
the author is the double inclined plane with some modifications, and
with which he has had admirable results.
“When you engage in practice,” he says p. 284, “you will soon be
convinced that the double inclined plane and short splints are generally
better than a more complicated apparatus.”
Again—“If physicians relied more on their common sense than on the rules
of authorities in the treatment of fractures, there would not be so many
cases of deformity resulting from such injuries as are daily presented.
I would as soon think of committing suicide as of placing an oblique
fracture of the tibia in an ordinary fracture-box, filled with either
sand, sawdust, or any of the other substances used for that purpose,” p.
279.
A case of aneurism of the left iliac artery is given and illustrated,
(p. 515). “In aneurism of the external iliac artery” the author says “I
never open the sheath, and consequently apply a single ligature; the
sheath of the vessel not being disturbed, there is scarcely a
possibility of the occurrence of secondary hemorrhages. I have ligated
the external iliac nine times, and my success is the best evidence of
the correctness of the theory upon which it is based. One patient died
from gangrene of the extremity, and the other from internal hemorrhage
which proceeded from the small vessels that were lacerated when the
peritoneum was detached from the iliac fossa,” p. 516.
The volume is well illustrated by fresh designs,—all of them original—a
matter of sincere congratulation to the author and publishers.
A book possessed of so much originality and individuality as this, will
be sure to find a large number of readers among the former students of
the author, and will also make its way into favor with the student of
American surgery.
* * * * *
_Syphilis by Vaccination with Human Virus._—The virus was taken
from the arm of a child aged seven months, apparently in perfect
health. Twenty-five girls were vaccinated from this infant. At the
end of six weeks, twelve of the girls were taken with symptoms of
syphilis, ulcerations at point of inoculation followed by
exanthema, ulcerations in mouth and pharynx, condylomata of anus,
syphilitic ozœena, etc.; three others of the group suffered from
suspicious ulceration near the vaccine sore, which failed to be
followed by constitutional symptoms. Later it was discovered that
the mother of the child was suffering from syphilis.—_Hosp. Med.
Gazette._—_Louisville Med. News._