Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/505

 SURF BIRD creditor is not bound, so far as the surety is concerned, to pursue the ordinary legal reme- dies against the principal, yet he is bound, in respect to all remedies given him by way of pledge or security or by other act of the par- ties, to hold or pursue them diligently in be- half of the surety; and if he relinquish any such remedy without the knowledge or against the will of the surety, he shall lose his claim against the latter to the extent of the right surrendered. Question has often been made whether the creditor would not lose his right against the surety if the principal should be- come insolvent after a request by the surety (which was disregarded) that proceedings be immediately taken for collection; but it has generally been held that he did not, and that the remedy of the surety was to pay the debt and then proceed to collect of the principal. SURF BIRD (aphrisa virgata, Gray), a wading bird of the plover family, and subfamily cin- clince or turnstones. The bill is about as long as the head, with vaulted obtuse tip and com- pressed sides; wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest; tail moderate and even; tarsi as long as middle toe, robust, with small irregular scales; toes long, free at the base, sides of anterior ones margined, and hind one elevated, slender, and partly resting on the ground. It is about 10 in. long, with the wing 7 in.; dark brown above, lighter on the wing coverts, with white spots and stripes on the head and neck; upper tail coverts and basal half of tail white, the latter terminated with brownish black; under parts white, tinged with ashy in front, each feather having a brown- ish black crescent. It is found on the Pacific coast of North and South America, and in the Hawaiian islands, and is migratory. SURGEON, a bird of the stork family. See JACANA. SURGERY, or CWrurgery (Gr. xfy, the hand, and Ipyov, labor), that department of the art of healing which appertains to the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of the class of dis- eases which require manual or instrumental measures for their cure. The sphere of sur- gery is more limited and at the same time more accurately defined than that of medicine. Surgery divides tissues or parts improperly united, and unites those which have been di- vided when they should remain in union; sep- arates whatever has become dangerous or in- convenient to the patient; removes foreign bodies, or parts of the body which from dis- ease or loss of vitality have become foreign, whenever they exert a hurtful influence on the animal economy; restores to their cavity or replaces in their normal position portions of the body which have become displaced; checks the loss of blood from wounded or divided blood vessels; reduces inflammations, or removes the purulent or phlegmonous mat- ter which may have been deposited by them; repairs and corrects deformities and distor- tions; and effects the replacement of lost SURGERY 485 tissues. Its means of accomplishing these re- sults are the hand, lint, bandages, and ap- paratus of various kinds, cutting, crushing, and probing instruments, catheters, bougies, sounds, forceps, specula, &c., and the various forms of cauteries, direct and indirect, liquid and solid. The earliest surgeons of whom there is any record were the Egyptian priests. According to Herodotus, we owe to them the use of the moxa and the adaptation of arti- ficial limbs. Among the ancient Hebrews there is but little evidence of surgical skill, and that little was confined to the priests. In Greece, surgery is as ancient as the mythic pe- riod of its history. Chiron the centaur, born in Thessaly, and skilful in the application of soothing herbs to wounds and bruises, is the legendary father of Greek surgery. But ^Es- culapius, the son of Apollo, said by some to have been the pupil of Chiron, though others call him his predecessor and superior, won the highest fame in that early time for surgical skill. He is said to have been deified on ac- count of his wonderful success about 60 years before the Trojan war. Temples were reared for his worship, which became the repositories of surgical knowledge, at Epidaurus, Rhodes, Cnidus, Cos, and Pergamus. Homer has im- mortalized his two sons, Podalirius and Macha- on, the companions of Agamemnon in the Tro- jan war, where they rendered essential service in healing the wounds of the Grecian heroes. The Asclepiades, or reputed descendants of ^Esculapius, retained the monopoly of surgery as well as medicine in their family. They had established in this period three schools of medicine, at Rhodes, Cnidus, and Cos. Py- thagoras, in the 6th century B. C., established at Crotona a new school of medicine, in which his peculiar philosophy was probably applied to the art of healing; among its early pupils was Democedes, eminent as a surgeon, who when taken captive by the Persians reduced the dislocated ankle of Darius, and removed or in some way cured the cancerous breast of his queen Atossa, after the Egyptian phy- sicians had failed. The want of anatomical knowledge, no dissections being allowed, was a fatal bar to any considerable progress in sur- gery. Hippocrates (about 400 B. C.) more than any of his predecessors advanced surgical treat- ment; he reduced dislocations and adjusted fractures, used the trephine, applied the for- ceps in accouchement, made incisions into the kidney for the removal of calculi, performed amputations, and perforated the cavity of the ribs in empyema and hydrothorax. Interdicted from human dissection, he practised the dis- section of the ape tribe as nearest to man in anatomical structure, and thus obtained much knowledge. For a century after the death of Hippocrates we meet few names of note in surgery. The founding of the Alexandrian school under Ptolemy Soter about 300 B. C. was another important epoch in the advance of the art. Herophilus and Erasistratus, the