Book Description

Excerpt from Military Surgery of the Zone of the Advance This concise vade-mecum on the treatment of war wounds is, in no sense of the word, a text-book on military surgery. Its essential aim is to give a resume of the primary treatment which, in the light of painfully acquired experience on the western front during the past three years, has proved most satisfactory in the opinion of those best qualified to judge. Little or no attempt has been made to discuss pathology or diagnosis, fundamentals with which the army surgeon is deemed sufficiently well equipped. It is written essentially for the Medical officer who, well grounded though he be in the principles and practice of his art in times of peace, finds himself now confronted with an environment and a class of traumatic lesions foreign to him. Civil surgery is mainly directed toward the control of pathological conditions, through the agency of wounds deliberately made by the surgeon, usually under a favorable and selected environment. In his newly assumed role of military surgeon the same doctor is no longer able to choose his own conditions; he has to make the best of those in which his lot is cast. As a famous French surgeon concisely states the matter: "On fait ce que l'on peut, ou on le peut, quand on le peut, comme on le peut," i. e., "One does what one can, where one can, when one can, how one can." No longer allowed to consider the case of the individual as paramount, his treatment must invariably be subservient to the military necessities of the moment. This brings up a question of fundamental importance with which we are immediately confronted. With us, speaking in general terms, neither the physician nor the sanitary personnel has had any previous knowledge of military matters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.