The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-07-13
The ouick-to.operate Surgeon.

DeS Moines Register and Leader:
There is reason to believe that the
surgeon who is quick to operate on the
slightest excuse has had his longest
day Protest against him is coming,
not so much from the general public
as is it from the men of his own
particular profession. Prominent men
of the medical world are free to say
that there has been too much operat-
ing in the past and that with the adj
vance of medical science there will be
less in the future.
For instance, we give herewith a
number Of interesting sentences TAX
en- from an article by leading Pitts
burg practitioner in the current num-
Der of the Medical Record. They are
not his worGs alone, but those Of 9th
er prominent men who are quoted by
him. They read as follows:
Surgery often fails. The
best surgery is the least that is nee
essary. Physicians feel and
indeed believe they know, that oper-
ations, no matter how skillfully done
and with what remarkable outcome,
do not invariably lead to good results.
They see occurrences, they remark
unexpected deaths, they are not unfa-
miliar with painful symptoms later,
which are fairly attributable to pre-
vious operations. a surgical
success but the patient died. is re-
proachful couplet now familiar to all
/ laymen. Operative surgery is over
done. Whenever a child is taken to a
physician o. specialist there seems to
be tonsil, an adenoid, or an appen,
4 dix which ought to come out. Politi
cal doctors pursue children even into
the public schools and send them
4 away for operations upon their eyes
their tonsils and their allefed ade
noids! The time may come
when the question will be apropos
Does the surgeon need the knife?"
J. We all remember the surgeon who
seemed to delight in the use of the
knife. He was numerous everywhere
in the medical profession a few year:
ago. We read much about his mar
velous skill and Of the number of op
erations to his credit-the more the
greater he was. He took men and wo
men within a knife's edge OF the yer!
brink of death and then brought then
back, minus this, that or the othel
internal thing-um-bob. Many times
his operations were wonderfully sue
cessful. Or shall we say, accidental.
successful? OF these instances W,
heard much More times, perhaps, tn,
operation ended unsuccessfully soon
er or later. We heard little OF thes,
instances. In one Iowa city it wa
said of one of these brilliant surgeon
: that his motto was, When in doubt
cut 1t out" He had long list of case
to his credit, and none to his dis
$ credit for, as above quoted, his opeI
: ations were invariably surgical sue
| cesses, although sometimes the pa
I tient died. This man, like many 9th
/ ers, seemed to be fascinated by hi
skill and life had no greater pleas
ure for him than to do new and a
e most unheard of things in his opers
Q tions. This man was not the rule. bu
i he was type of many of his kind.
The article in the Medical Recor
y from which the above extracts wer
taken, makes an especial attack upo
the ready tendency in the professio
n to operate upon the tonsils. The wri
n err DIR. Richard B. Faulkner, point
out that the profession knows yer
s little about the true character
Y these mysterious organs, and yet
l. proceeds to scrape them, trim thel
down, or cut them out altogethe
with impunity. He intimates tina
II much of this sort of thing is uni
IT telligent practice; he suggests tn;
I there ought to be better understan
II ing of parts operated upon than
y the case of the tonsils, and he d
t clares that the man with a kni
m must succeed along the line OF physi
20 logical research or he must not ope
IS ate.
Is Surgery is necessary, but too mus
r surgery is not. 1t is matter Of c