Medical versus surgical means of diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases : the burning question in medicine / by Anthony Bassler.

  • Bassler, Anthony, 1874-
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medical versus surgical means of diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases : the burning question in medicine / by Anthony Bassler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    a a The Burning Question in Medicine. By ANTHONY BASSLER, M.D. New York City ARCUS Aurelius, the wisest of Roman Emperors, died in 180. Before then he wrote: “Remember that all is but opinion, and all opinion depends on the mind. Take thine opinion away, and then as a ship that hath stricken in and within the arms and .mouth of the harbor, a present calm; all things safe and steady; a bay not capable of any storms and tempests.”* XII, 16. Accepting these words on opinion as true today, the situation in the subject considered tonight shows that we are still far at sea and to a great degree rolling tempestuously about. The internists and stomach specialists have had their opportunity for many years, and to great extent failed through omission. The surgeons have recently come forth, and also to a great extent failed but through commission. The general practitioners who man the deck and who have the deepest interest in the sick passengers, are all over it and nowhere at the same time according to the patient and as the consultents are inclined. At one time they are pro- surgical and rallying with the surgeon, and at another promedical and with the internist. Every general practitioner who has had enough experience with these difficult-to-fathom cases and been active in cooperative practice with them, will tell you of recent cases that he took to internists and stomach specialists and they failed him, and others which he delivered over to surgeons and they failed him too. In the same breath, he will relate apparently surgical cases in which he was glad that no operation had been done, and not a few in which he was thankful that it had been performed after having had long and bitter discouragement with the internist and stomach specialist. If my work was that of catering to a general family practice, on this subject,! would stand in the centre of the deck and huddle my patient up close beside me with both arms around him and keep perfectly still until my own reasoning directed me the way, or some diagnostician, what- ever his classification, advancing reason and logic on the case would show me how to turn with him. It is generally agreed that we are striving to bring practical medicine to a more definite basis, a mighty difficult, tedious and often discouraging thing to accomplish in only one of the myriad of details in this subject. In this, the surgeon wdio plays to the galleries in his rantings against stomach specialists accomplishes