Fractures, dislocations, diseases and deformities of the bones of the trunk and upper extremities / by Hugh Owen Thomas.

  • Thomas, Hugh Owen, 1834-1891.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fractures, dislocations, diseases and deformities of the bones of the trunk and upper extremities / by Hugh Owen Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    ance. But the fact, that the details of treatment, advised by me, have in a short space of time become so widely accepted, and the daily increasing evidence of their beneficial influence in aiding recovery from injury and disease, give me pre- sumptive evidence that my theories are correct and will, in time, become generally accepted.* * If the reader will compare the past teaching of those, who, before my entry into this field, contributed to the literature of diseased articulations and fractures, with what they now expound, he will perceive that of late years I am rapidly being seconded. Indeed, in some instances, my opinions have been adopted, but in a manner I did not expect. For example, through the kindness of the author, I have, this day (July i8th, 188C), received a reprint of a lecture, reported in the United States Medical Record, May ist, 1886. In this lecture the whole of my teaching relative to diseased articulations has been adopted — notably, my constant contention that hitherto we had taken a too mechanical view of the requirements of treatment, and that, if anchylosis can possibly wear off, it does so best by the patient's voluntary attempts at ordinary use of the part. In fact, the lecture is a skilfully condensed epitome of my writings upon this subject, which I know the lecturer to be conver- sant with, and which are opposed to the views published by him in the Medical Record, July 7th, 1883. To remove from the minds of his audience any suspicion of retailing second hand information, the lecturer informs them: I have none of my fellow-workers in view, we have all been followers of Dr. H. G. Davis. This informed me that while the lecturer could ignore the source of the infor- mation he was circulating, yet he could lug forward a surgeon whose teaching has so injuriously influenced the practice of the surgery of diseased joints, and from whom he now joins me in dissenting. In a second lecture reported, June 5th, 1886, in the same medical journal, the subject of the treatment of diseased knee- joints is discussed. In this some theoretical points of treatment, such as the gripping of the sound part only to steady the diseased locality, are advised, but there is no acknowledgment of an indebtedness. This lecture contains a description of my means of treating knee-lesion, which is not correct; consequently, as might be expected, faults are pointed to. This last mistake of the lecturer reminds me of a New York surgeon who, because he could not carry out the total of my treatment for hip disease, adopted one-half of it, and then rechristened the seg- ment which he was able to comprehend. Some six years back one of our Gallic neighbours published my views as his own, and they were thought so meritorious, that a watchful foreign correspondent of an English medical journal gave us a re-importation. I could point out more examples of this by night sort of compli- ment ; but refrain lest my readers should suppose I believe that the most intelligent among us are also the most unscrupulous plagiarists.