Of the Germans the great names are, Schmucker (1712-1786), Richter (1742-1812), and Siebold (1736-1807), who first taught surgery clinically in Germany.
Callisen (1740-1824), the great Danish surgeon, and Anel (1741-1801), the founder of the Swedish School of Surgery, are two famous names which must be remembered in the surgical history of the period.
William Cheselden (1688-1752) was famous as a lithotomist and oculist. His dexterity in the performance of lithotomy caused marvellous legends to be told of him, it was even said that he had operated in fifty-four seconds. He published his Anatomy of the Human Body in 1713.
Samuel Sharp (1700-1778) excelled in nearly every branch of surgery, and was a skilful operator, who by his efforts to stimulate English surgeons to emulate the French did much to advance British surgery.
Benjamin Gooch of Norwich, Hey of Leeds, and Park of Liverpool, were also famous in this period.
Percival Pott (1713-1788) was a surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, whose life formed a sort of epoch in the history of surgery in England. Samuel Cooper says of him[1010] that he was in his time the best practical surgeon, the best lecturer, the best writer on surgery, the best operator of which the metropolis could boast.
John Hunter (1728-1793) was a physiologist and surgeon combined, unrivalled in the annals of medicine. He raised surgery, which before his time was little more than a mechanical art, to the rank of a scientific profession. As a pathologist and comparative anatomist, he rendered the greatest services to medicine and surgery. He dissected 500 different species of animals. One of the most brilliant surgical discoveries of the century was Hunter’s operation for the cure of popliteal aneurism, by tying the femoral artery above the tumour and without interfering with it. He improved the treatment of rupture of the tendo achillis, and invented a method of curing lachrymal fistula, and of curing hydrocele radically by injection.
He was the first to describe phlebitis (inflammation of the veins), and he made the discovery that the white blood corpuscles are antecedent to the red. He investigated the subject of inflammation, the results of which he published in his Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation and Gun-shot Wounds. Other works of Hunter’s are his Treatise on the Natural History of the Human Teeth, A Treatise on the Venereal Disease, and Observations on Certain Points of the Animal Economy. “His greatest monument is the splendid museum which he formed by his sole efforts, which he made too when labouring under every disadvantage of deficient education and limited means.” His brother-in-law, Sir Everard Home, prepared the catalogue of the museum and then burned Hunter’s manuscripts, probably that he might conceal the plagiarisms of which he had been guilty in writing his book on Comparative Anatomy. The Government purchased Hunter’s museum from his widow for £15,000, upon condition that twenty-four lectures should be delivered every year to members of the college, and that the museum should be open to the public.
Charles White, a Manchester surgeon (circ. 1768), was the first to introduce what is known as conservative surgery. He first resected[1011] the humerus, and taught the reduction of shoulder dislocations with the heel in the arm-pit.
The German surgeons in the seventeenth century held simply the position of barbers; they began life by cutting hair, shaving, cupping and bleeding, and then rose to be dressers of wounds and ulcers, and to treat fractures and dislocations.[1012] In 1713, Berlin acquired its first anatomical theatre for the instruction of military doctors and “medico-surgeons.” Dresden and Hanover began to improve the education of clever barbers about the middle of the eighteenth century. The Military Medical School of Vienna was opened in 1781. Barbers and bathmen in the eighteenth century were trained into district medical officers and surgeons by a course of instruction lasting from two to three years. In Holland students were privileged to assist in operations at the hospitals. The first surgical clinic in Germany was established at Würzburg, in 1769. The Vienna surgical clinic arose in 1774. The greatest teacher of surgery in Germany, A. G. Richter, gave clinical instruction at Göttingen, in 1781.[1013]