Outlines of the principles and practice adopted in the Orthopaedic Institution of Brooklyn / by Louis Bauer ... and Richard Barthelmess.

  • Bauer, Louis, 1814-1898.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of the principles and practice adopted in the Orthopaedic Institution of Brooklyn / by Louis Bauer ... and Richard Barthelmess. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    * PREFACE. The private residences of patients afflicted with deformities of the body rarely afford those accommodations and advantages indispensa¬ bly required for the successful treatment of such complaints. Gym¬ nastic and orthopaedic apparatus are, in general, too expensive for the means of single individuals besides involving difficulties in respect to their erection and proper management. Again, prompt and attentive nursing is absolutely requisite for the attainment of favor¬ able results in any medical treatment, and especially so in orthopaedy, where every thing depends on the strict and minute execution of a certain curative plan. That competent nurses are more likely to be found in orthopaedic institutions, where daily opportunities are offered for their effectual training, there can be no doubt. Finally, it is es¬ sential, on the part of the surgeon, in orthopaedic treatment, that he should be a thoroughly educated medical man, and be besides in the possession of special knowledge, practical experience and dexterity in orthopaedic surgery; and but few medical practitioners can have met with the opportunity of acquiring this special knowledge, in the course of their scientific pursuits. These, in short, are the indisputable advantages of large institu¬ tions in reference of orthopaedic treatment. After careful consideration and full estimation of the difficulties ne¬ cessarily attendant on an enterprise of this description, Drs. Bauer and Barthelmess have undertaken to establish an orthopaedic in¬ stitution, which shall embrace all those advantages hardly procurable by even the most wealthy patient at his private house. The wri¬ ters confidently trust that their establishment, calculated to meet a public necessity, will therefore find a ready support both from the pro¬ fession and the public at large, and to their patronage it is recom¬ mended.