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Excerpt from The British and Foreign Medical Review, Vol. 23: Or Quarterly Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery; January-April, 1847
Dr. Gross, with reason, dates the commencement of scientific knowledge respecting wounds of the intestines from the publication of Mr. Travers's excellent work in 1812, stating that he did not, like his predecessors, limit his inquiries to the human subject, but extended them to the inferior animals at the same time Dr. Gross claims priority in this respect to a certain extent for Dr. Thomas Smith. We may just observe that Mr. Travers refers to Dr. Smith's experiments, and that it is not quite accu rate to imply that either Mr. Travers or Dr. Smith had no predecessor in this branch Of experimental inquiry. Mr. Travers very fully notices the antecedent experiments of Wm. Cowper, Mr Skipton, Dr. Thomson, and Sir A. Cooper, and alludes to some by Maabius and Louis. De Blegny, also, in 1682, Dr. Wallis in 1695, Vogel in 1704, Brunner in 1722, Schlichting in 1742, Mr. Watson in 1790, and doubtless others of whom we are ignorant, published experiments and facts respecting wounds Of the intestines of animals. The value of these experiments, however, taken even in the aggregate, was but tri¿ing. De Blegny, Brunner, Cowper, and Schlichting, did not even dissect the animals they experimented on and to Mr. Travers unquestionably belongs the merit Of having first sys tematically investigated the subject of wounds of the intestinbes, and of having put us in possession Of any precise and definite knowledge respect ing the process whereby such wounds are repaired, whether spontaneously, or with the intervention of art.
Dr. Gross's first chapter, on the Nature of wounds of the intestines, is divided into four sections, in which he considers the structure of the alimentary canal, the nature and extent Of the peritoneal cavity, the symptoms, diagnosis, and prognosis' 'of wounds of the intestines, and, finally, their mode of reparation. As regards the thiee former sections, a few points only require to be adverted to butthe last section demands a more careful examination, which, however, we can most conveniently give to it when considering the chapter on treatment.
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