A Report On The Excisions Of The Head Of The Femur For Gun Shot Wounds.
By George A. Otis, M.D.,
Assistant Surgeon and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel U.S.A.
Being Circular No. 2 War Department, Surgeon-General's Office.
Jan. 1869. 4to, pp. 141.
Washington: Government Printing Office.
It is not our purpose, in calling the attention of the readers of The Catholic World to this work, to enter upon any discussion or details of a purely surgical character, which would be obviously out of place. The Catholic World is essentially Catholic, and while strictly and purely so, aims to embrace within the scope of its critical observation every subject of interest and importance to society; and especially to award its cordial praise to those efforts which have for their object genuine science, true humanity, and national and individual honor and intellectual and moral advancement.
The work before us is of the character indicated. In reverting to the public calamities and private miseries of the late war, it is a matter of satisfaction to know that out of the eater has come forth some meat; out of the strong, some sweetness. With the exception of the doubtful advantage of the knowledge which we have gained of our brute strength, some improvement in gunnery, and the familiarization of the public mind with battle, murder, and sudden death, we have reaped no substantial benefit excepting in the department of military surgery. The medical profession gave during the war an extraordinary example of courage, devotion to duty, labor, and self-sacrifice, which we fear is not fully appreciated either by the country or the government. They rose as a body above the political issues involved, and the personal passions evoked, and, acting on the great principle of charity underlying their vocation, saw, in many a sick and wounded man, a friend and brother.
This principle was acted upon on both sides, it was the most humanizing element which entered into the conflict, and aided and seconded the chivalric spirit which animated the graduates of West Point. These two qualities redeemed the late war from utter barbarism.
There was, on the part of the medical officers, an earnest, conscientious, and zealous determination to ascertain the best methods of treatment in all cases, and an ardent desire to relieve suffering, save life, and preserve limbs in the best possible condition for future usefulness. The publications of the Medical Department and the admirable museum collected at Washington bear testimony to the accuracy of this statement, and, while they are a terrible and sickening commentary on man's inhumanity to man, they are also a sublime and beautiful illustration of that power which turns temporary calamities into permanent benefits, and of that humanity and science which are both motives and objects of the profession of medicine.
The reports issued from time to time by the surgeon-general are the concentrated and distilled expression of multitudes of crude and detached observations, carefully elaborated, compared, analyzed, and corrected, till they come to express the precise knowledge and experience of the present day on a given subject.
The portion of this great work before us is prepared by Doctor George A. Otis, Assistant Surgeon and Lieutenant-Colonel U.S.A., and is a model of patient labor, exact knowledge, just discrimination, and acutely intelligent appreciation. It presents all that is known in regard to a class of terrible and exceedingly fatal injuries. The facts, evidence, and opinions are carefully and impartially weighed and estimated, and the conclusions are such as will be accepted by every discriminating surgeon throughout the world.
The voice of the medical profession will, we believe, endorse the opinion which we somewhat apodictically express.
Society and the country owe Doctor Otis a debt of gratitude for his great work, and also the medical bureau which aids and directs his labors. Such works belong to the class of benefits whose value cannot be expressed by human standards. They reflect honor upon the age and country which produce them, and are an invaluable legacy to the future.