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A Medico-Legal Treatise on Malpractice and Medical Evidence
A Medico-Legal Treatise on Malpractice and Medical Evidence Author:John J. Elwell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. WHAT DEFINITE KNOWLEDGE IS POSSIBLE AND ESSENTIAL FOR THE PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON. Having considered some of the impossibilities of medical and ... more »surgical practice—others will be noticed hereafter—it may be well to examine to what extent the surgeon's knowledge must reach—that which can and should be known to the practical medical man. The courts hold that the surgeon and physician must be master of that degree of knowledge which is reasonably within their reach. To this end a minute and correct understanding of the real character and importance of Inflammation is essential. It lies at the threshold of practical surgery; and, without this knowledge, the surgeon must grope his way in a labyrinth of doubt and darkness, and stumble when he should walk confidently. What the terrible power of steam is to the engineer, inflammation is to the surgeon. From it he has to apprehend much of the danger to which he is exposed, and without it he can do nothing. It is the great, mysterious and ever present power of nature, that immediately springs into living activity, when any part of the physical economy is invaded by an injury from without, or an enemy within. After the mechanics connected with surgery are attended to— which, indeed, is generally the less difficult part—if the surgeon does not act coincidently and understandingly with this influence, he had much better fall back and let this great elementary power of pathology do the work. The result will be better than il there is a blind, hap-hazard intermeddling on the part of an ignorant surgeon. Too many surgeons seem to think the important thing upon which a surgical reputation depends, is the manual dexterity with which an operation is performed. While this should be well done, it is not all-important. A thoroug...« less