For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners
REFERENCE / HEALTH / INSTRUCTIONAL / NON-FICTION
BY JOSEPH BELL, F.R.C.S. EDIN
LECTURER ON CLINICAL SURGERY, SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY AND TO THE EYE INFIRMARY, AND LATE DEMONSTRATOR OF ANATOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES SYME, ESQ., F.R.C.S. AND F.R.S.E.
SURGEON TO THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND / PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY HIS OLD HOUSE-SURGEON AND ASSISTANT
A Manual of the Operations of Surgery by Joseph Bell Book Excerpt
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Having been asked, year after year, by the members of my Class for Operative Surgery, to recommend to them some Manual of Surgical Operations which might at once guide them in their choice of operations, and give minute details as to the mode of performance, I have been gradually led to undertake the production of this little work.
My aim has been to describe as simply as possible those operations which are most likely to prove useful, and especially those which, from their nature, admit of being practiced on the dead body.
In accordance with this plan, neither historical completeness of detail, nor much variety in the methods of performing any given operation, is to be expected. Hence, also, many omissions which would be unpardonable in the briefest system of Surgery are unavoidable. For example, excision of tumours and operations for necrosis are hardly mentioned, because for these no special instructions can well be given; for, while general principles may guide us to what should be done, the special circumstances of each case must dictate how it is to be done.
In such a work as this, to attempt originality would be undesirable and intrusive; a judicious selection, a faithful compilation, are all that can be expected.
