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Show T0 run annex. TO THE READER. body; while the acknowledged use of anatomy has reference to the living body. He can perform operations, but does not know the fit occasions for them; nor how much the powers of however, that I have explained the action of the throat and glottis, and the accidents in practice, so as to prevent the recurrence of some errors which have come to my knowledge. .y~'e'p'\;y;'\e-fly. "NW-5,, L1,; , is vi vii life will bear ; nor how the constitution varies, and disease One thing I cannot avoid mentioning : when the patient has aflects the natural powers of life. Having acknowledged thus much, I take this position in favour of anatomy, that there is no doing without it ; no ad: vancing in safety one step, either in study or in practice, struggled for some time with the spasmodic difficulty of without its guidance. The ignoranceof it makes a surgeon shy and deceitful; and what a commentary might be written culty in the throat, but if the operation be performed it will be too late ; for the difficulty of breathing through the larynx has ceased in consequence of the general debility having re- on these two words ! I am in hopes that, when my reader peruses the chapters in this volume, which treat of Fractured Bones, of Dislocations, and of Wounded Arteries, he will think, that, although it be possible to cull from dissertations breathing, the face is swelled, and of a leaden colour ; an ap- oplectic insensibility follows; when you raise him up, the head falls upon the shoulder; he now breathes with less diffi- solved the spasm. This debility of the muscular fibre and insensibility, has resulted from the effusion having taken place in the lungs. on the diseases which fall under the care of the surgeon, and What I have said on the subject of the artificial pupil I from the lectures of eminent men, what might form a book wish my reader to consider as a suggestion hitherto unground- having more of the external character of a system than these ed on the observation of the human eye. volumes ; it is impossible to enter on the discussion, to go to the depth of the subject for the principle of practice, without a continual reference to the structure ; and that by keeping the anatomy continually in view, the rule of practice comes out more correctly, with more simplicity and force. It is in this sense that I have ventured to call the present work a System ; for I hold a system to be distinguished more by the governing principle than by the apparent order of enumerm tion. I have considered fractures and dislocations as forming the principle matter of the volume ; and before treating of them, I have thrown the subjects of abscess, and of disease of the spine and of the great joints, into short dissertations, as forming the best introductions to the surgery of the bones ; a subject so important to the practical and military surgeon. By the liberality of my friends, and increasing opportunities of observation, even since these sheets have been printed, I have had cases and dissections which would more fully have illus« trated some part of this subject ; but I am happy to say, that no circumstances have occurred, which in any degree, leave me to regret what I have said under this head. I hope the manner in which I have set forth the anatomy I HAVE to regret, that in the very first part of this volume I have not been able to speak decidedly, as to the rule of of the arteries will be acknowledged to be useful. For I have found students satisfied with repeating Murray's tables of the arteries, and by that test estimating their knowledge of practice. this important and diflicult subject. I allude to the operation of bronchotomy. I have not performed the operation; and surgeons with whom I have conversed upon this subject, have not, in my opinion, taken the whole circumstances into consideration. I hope? I have laboured to discountenance this idea, and to convince them that there is a minute knowledge of the arteries to which they have little turned their thoughts. It is not yet |