PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The first edition of this book, in spite of numerous typographic errors beyond the control of the writer, was very soon exhausted. An apology is due the many, to whom, during the last ten years, a new edition has been repeatedly promised. The writer’s only excuse for the failure to fulfill these promises has been the pressure of other work that has prevented such fulfillment. In the final accomplishment of these promises the book has been practically rewritten and more than doubled in size.
The autopsy method given in the main text is a composite one, made up from the Rokitansky, Virchow, Chiari and Nauwerck methods, according to the judgment of the writer as to what was the best in these, and put together with modifications and additions arising out of his own experience. The aim has been to offer a method by which an autopsy can be performed with the greatest speed and ease, and at the same time with the greatest completeness, the various steps of the operation following in logical order in such a way that nothing can be lost or destroyed, and thereby revealing a complete picture of the pathologic conditions present. A choice of methods is offered whenever the aims of the examination may be so varied as to make variations in method advantageous. The general order of the autopsy is the same as that given in the Protocol Blank-book, the present book being designed as a guide and reference-book for that. The points to be noted in the examination of each region are given in connection with the method of examination of that region, and represent the condensed special pathology of the latter. This should be of great service to the beginner in autopsy work, as affording a concise but complete guide to the most important conditions of each region. A textbook on Special Pathology should be used as a reference book in connection with these condensed statements of special pathology.
The technical methods for microscopic examination given in Part II have been brought up to date, and all recent methods of value included. Original methods have been given in preference to modifications; the latter, when of value, are also mentioned. As a rule that method has been chosen which in the light of the writer’s laboratory experience has yielded uniformly the best results. An effort has been made to reduce the number of methods to the lowest number as representing the best and most indispensable ones. During the fourteen years of laboratory experience since the publication of the first edition there has been plenty of time for changes in points-of-view concerning laboratory methods. Then an ardent exponent of celloidin-imbedding as a routine method, the writer has now practically discarded it in favor of paraffin-imbedding and the celloidin-sheet made by the dextrin-sugar or molasses method. This combination method is so superior in every way to ordinary celloidin-imbedding that the latter becomes obsolete except for a limited number of conditions. A number of personal modifications of various methods will also be found in this part of the book; indeed, it is intended to be an expression of individual opinion concerning laboratory methods.
The writer’s views concerning the value of teaching by unknowns,—that is, giving the student preparations or case-material for his own analysis and independent working-out to a diagnosis—are stronger now than they were when the preface to the first edition was written. Experiments with other methods of teaching have always brought me back to this as yielding by far the best results. It accomplishes two things—it not only teaches a knowledge of pathology, but it develops objectivity and the faculties of diagnosis, and accomplishes these with more marked success than any other method of teaching pathology.
Aldred Scott Warthin, Ph.D., M.D.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, May, 1911.