A Manual of the Operations of Surgery, page 1 by Joseph Bell
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& Stewart, Booksellers to the University. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. 1883.
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 ETC. ETC.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY HIS OLD HOUSE-SURGEON AND ASSISTANT
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION.
To retain the small size of the work and to keep it up to date have been the Author's aim in the Fifth Edition.
20 MELVILLE STREET, EDINBURGH, August 1883.
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 practised 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.
That the selection of operations may sometimes show "Northern Proclivities" is possible; and this is perhaps not unnatural to a scholar an