Scenes in the practice of a New York surgeon

Front matter

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Preface

At the close of the sixth volume of a journal as original, and with an object as extraordinary, as the Scalpel, "a successful attempt," as one of our cotemporaries has expressed it, " to popularise medicine by the attractions of tragedy, comedy, and the strategy of literature," when the entire charge of filling its pages and sustaining its large pecuniary outlay had rested for six years upon one man, immersed in the cares of an arduous surgical practice, and when its unfortunate title rendered it well nigh hopeless, even in the face of more than sixteen thousand notices of the press, to disabuse the public of its medical repulsiveness, and to convince them of its adaptedness to instruct the intellect and improve the heart — the public may judge of the gratification of the Editor, at the request of Messrs. De Witt & Davenport, that he would permit the selection of a volume for popular instruction and amusement from its pages. He at once acceded to the handsome terms offered by

those gentlemen, and hopes that their anticipations will be realized. The didactic matter he is sure will be found unobjectional, however largely the kindness of the reader may be taxed by the manner in which it is conveyed.

To Dr. Dewees, of this city, for his beautiful Scenes in N^orthern and Southern Practice, to Dr. Richmond, of Jefferson, Ohio, for his Scenes in Western Practice, the editor expresses his deep obligations. For the Scenes in City Practice and all the other articles, he alone is responsible. In explanation of their defects, he can only say, they were often written at the midnight hour, after the toils of daily practice : or at the bedside, whilst watching with the objects which suggested them.

It may interest the reader to know that the facts of every scene are actually true ; the words often differing very little from those used by the patient, on the occasion of the scene related ; it has been generously conceded that, by virtue of his profession, the surgeon is destitute of human sympathy ; so far as its more familiar manifestations are concerned, it ought to be so ; for tremulous hands and tear-blinded eyes are but illy calculated for surgical duties ; but I think it will be found that surgeorts enjoy no immunity from the ordinary emotions of the body and heart. It may be thought that some of the scenes are too trivial and ephemeral to occupy the serious

P R E F A C E attention of the reader ; and yet they are the every-day language of human life ; in the physical as in the moral world, nothing is lost; the spark arises and scintillates for a moment, by the lightness of the elements that produced it, and then falls, a little ashes, into the mass of its predecessors — the bubble seeks the surface of the stream in obedience to the same law, reflects for an instant the sunlight, and its elements are added to the great store-house of nature — even the tear, as its sources in the o'ercharged heart are unlocked, and it falls to the earth, is not lost, but its salts are treasured there till given back, perhaps, in some form of beauty and gladness. Let me then hope that whatever truths, useful to humanity, may be found in these pages, will not perish, but live for a little while after the hand that sketched them has been resolved into its elements.

Edwakd II. Dixon.

42 Fifth Jlvenue.