Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/35

 SURGERY xxv

happens that many men in different places come upon the same idea independently at about the same time. To attempt any such work would call for an extensive reading and study of surgical literature impossible for a surgeon earning his livelihood through his profession. Any man at- tempting it would have to be highly impartial, an omniverous reader, and have a ready knowledge of several modern languages. But it is prob- ably possible for most of us to keep up with contemporary progress and credit our own countrymen where they deserve credit. The impor- tant work of Americans has until recently been almost entirely ignored by Europeans, and many French, German and English writers have credited their own countrymen with work that has been accomplished long before by Americans. As examples: the study of spinal anesthesia, the modern hernia operation, excision of the Gasserian ganglion, and decortication of the lung for old empyema. Corning, of New York, and his confreres not only used spinal anesthesia on animals, but also for operation on man as early as 1885 ("New York Medical Journal," October 31, 1885). This method fell into merited disuse at that time, but was re-discovered by Bier over ten years later, yet it is not probable that many German surgeons know the work was not entirely original with him. So too, although Halsted, of Baltimore, described and published an account of an operation differing in no essential particular from the Bassini operation several months previously, Bassini is usually credited with this method even by American surgeons.

Henry O. Marcy, of Boston, probably antedates all others in the use of modern successful methods in the cure of reducible hernia. He described a highly satisfactory operation in 1878 ("Transactions American Medical Association," vol. xxix), and later, at the International Congress ("Transactions," vol. ii), in London, which perhaps suggested to Bassini and others many important points in the operation.

Frank Hartley, of New York, described an operation for excision of the Gasserian ganglion ("New York Medical Jounal," 1892) quite independently and before Krause, who is still given the exclusive credit by most German writers.

George R. Fowler ("Medical Record," December 30, 1893) per- formed decortication of the lung as a means of treating old cases of empyema with thickened pleura long before Delorme, although all French writers describe the operation as Delorme's operation and doubtless many American surgeons do not know of Fowler's work.

These are but a few instances of many which might be cited where American surgeons have failed to receive credit due for original and progressive work.

The discoveries of anesthesia and antisepsis divide the modern from the old in the history of surgery. Before this surgery consisted mainly