Page:The Hunterian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons in London, on the fourteenth day of February, 1821 (electronic resource) (IA b21483851).pdf/15

7 which this feeble attempt will be made to correspond with their intentions.

It has generally been affirmed, that Surgery was the. most ancient branch of the healing art. If this assumption be just, it can only apply to the more sim- | ple and obvious parts of it; such as closing and dressing wounds, reducing. luxations, binding up fractures, and em-playing such remedics as were found ca- pable of diminishing the pain, soreness, heat, swelling and rigidity of parts. It does not appear that the idea of awounding, in order to heal, was entertained very early. The practice of medicine being first cultivated in Egypt, the nature of the climate would have held out �