[Read to the Tri-State Medical Society.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen:—Amputation of the thigh or of the arm at the shoulder rank as the most fatal of surgical procedures. The causes of this fatality we shall not stop to consider in full, but simply ply enumerate such as are specially presented in the cases we bring to your notice to-day, and to which our treatment was specially directed, namely, shock, hæmorrhage and gangrene. I enumerate them in the order of their frequency as occurring in these cases. Shock, more or less severe, is always present. Hæmorrhage, in some form, is not infrequent, and gangrene occasionally presents in civil practice. To prevent these, or they having occurred to abridge their severity, is ever a foremost consideration of the surgeon.
The latter fact has induced me to pursue in all cases of surgery, of whatever magnitude, the treatment to which I would to-day