Among Sir Benjamin Brodie’s contributions to the science of surgery are many that may be classed as of the first importance. Such, for example, are his researches respecting the diseases of the joints; his remarks on a case of ununited fracture of the femur, in the course of which he praises the method of treatment first proposed by Dr. Physick of Philadelphia; his observations on the treatment of varicose veins of the legs; pathological and surgical observations relating to injuries of the brain—a contribution of very great value; and pathological and surgical observations on the diseases of the joints. The latter treatise, which already, in 1836, had reached its fourth edition, is mentioned by his biographer as “a book which must ever form an essential part of the library of every surgeon.”
Like all his predecessors who have given instruction in the art of surgery, from John Hunter to Desault, Sir Benjamin Brodie laid great stress upon the importance of an intimate knowledge of anatomy and physiology—of the inseparable connection of these branches of science, and of the interest derivable from a contemplation of the organization and functions of animal bodies, the laws which regulate the phenomena of life and the changes which matter undergoes, and the form which it assumes when associated with this mysterious and active principle.... “He believes them to be incapable of explanation, except on the hypothesis of there being in living bodies something superadded to organization, without which, he says, ‘they would be as incapable of executing their functions as the pendulum of a clock would be of vibrating, or its wheels of revolving, if they were deprived of the spring or weight, in which the cause of their motion resides.’” (Pettigrew.)
The matters referred to above are only a few of those which Sir Benjamin Brodie has discussed in so instructive a manner in the numerous short essays and larger treatises which he published between the years 1809 and 1837. His death occurred in 1862.
CHAPTER XVI
ENGLISH LEADERS IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY
Second Group (Continued): Sir Charles Bell and John Bell
Among the contemporaries of Sir Benjamin Brodie there were several London surgeons who, by reason of the important parts which they played in building up this branch of the science and art of medicine, fully deserve such consideration in the present review as my limited space will permit, and also as the sources of information upon which I am forced to depend for guidance may or may not prove helpful. Most fortunately for me at this juncture of affairs was the finding—among the rich treasures of the Medical Library of the former Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky—of Professor Roux’s account of a visit which he made to the English metropolis in 1814 for the purpose of learning at first hand precisely how the English surgeons of that day were dealing with the more important problems which they were called upon to solve. A more competent and fair-minded authority than Dr. Roux could scarcely have been found at that time for the task which he set before himself. In the first place he was himself an eminent surgeon, in fact the Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Surgery at the Faculté de Médecine of Paris, and at the same time he was wholly free from the animosity which most naturally pervaded a large part of the French nation in 1814 (just before the battle of Waterloo). And the very best evidence that he performed his judicial task to the entire satisfaction of the medical men of Great Britain is to be found in the fact that an English translation of his elaborate report reached a second edition in 1816. I therefore feel confident that, in basing my résumé largely upon Dr. Roux’s report regarding the condition of English surgery in the second decade of the nineteenth century, I shall not go far astray from the truth.
In his review of past events in the broad domain of surgery Roux says that the English attribute the first idea of the circular amputation of limbs to Cheselden, whereas the French give the credit for this operation to J. L. Petit. Then there are other operations which were devised or revived simultaneously by English and French surgeons—as, for example, in external aneurism, the tying of the diseased artery above the tumor (Desault and John Hunter), and the operation for Fistula in ano—an operation which was brought to the greatest degree of simplicity by Pott, Desault and some others.
On the other hand, there are many operations which were devised or perfected exclusively by French surgeons—for example, the method of extracting the crystalline lens, by Daviel; the treatment of fistula lachrymalis by dilating the nasal canal; the treatment of strangulated hernia by Goursand, Pipelet, Louis and others; the lateral operation (perinaeal) for removal of a calculus in the bladder; the operation of Frère Jacques; hypogastric lithotomy by Pierre Franco, and perfected by Frère Côme; etc.