SURGERY is that division of the heal. ing art, which is chiefly conversant with the treatment of the external and local disorders of the body, of the effects of accidental injury, and of such diseases in general as are curable by manual opera tion. Yet its field is not entirely confined to the department just alluded to ; since local disorders, and particularly accidents, often affect the whole frame, so as to in duce a general derangement of the con stitution ; and again, diseases of parts arise out of constitutional affections, or, although originally independent, may be greatly aggravated by them. Hence it as obviously necessary that the surgeon should be acquainted with the nature and treatment of such general disorders ; and consequently, in marking out the limits which divide the departments of the sur. geon and physician, it is hardly possible to attain such a pitch of accuracy, as to prevent all supposed encroachment of either side on the province of the other.
The care of the external and local af fections of the human body was, in the infancy of science, a branch of the art of medicine. Surgery and physic were then, and for many ages afterwards, practised by the smile individuals. These, how ever, in course of time, began to consider the manual and operative part of the pro fession as too mechanical and low for per sons of their scient:fic education, and con sequently resigned them to an inferior class of uneducated men, who generally combined with them the trade of the barber. Hence arose, in most countries of Europe, the calling of barber.surgeon ; which Included, besides shaving, hair dressing, &c. tooth drawing, bleeding, dressing of ulcers, and other of the more common and easy parts of operative sur gery. While contaminated by so degrad ing an alliance, and practised by persons wholly illiterate, we cannot be surprised to find that surgery and its professors met with neglect and contempt, and that the latter were considered as merely subordi nate to the physicians. The barber-sur geons must still have had opportunities of seeing and learning disease; they began to get an insight into the structure of the human body, and they acquired a respec tability, by being employed in wars in the cure of the wounded. The physicians, who were still the only regularly educat ed and scientific class of men practising the art of healing, wished to retain their old and long enjoyed superiority ; and. hence arose in many countries long and sharp disputes with the barber-surgeons, which ended at last, as the progress of ci vilization and improvement would natu rally lead us to expect, in the separation of the barbers and surgeons, and the ele vation of the latter to their proper rank and consideration in society.
Whatever part of the subject we may contemplate, we shall find that the art of surgery requires, no less than that of physic, all the advantages that can be de rived from the most liberal education; that it demands still more imperiously a fami liar knowledge of anatomy and physiolo gy, i. e. of the structure and functions of that machine, whose derangements it proposes to remedy ; and consequently, that although prejudice still assigns to the physician a superior rank to that of the surgeon, they must be considered, in modern days, as equals, whether we re gard the reason of the thing, or proceed to an actual comparison of individuals.
Our opinions concerning tile education and qualifications of the surgeon will be easily collected from the foregoing obser vations. Instead of spending seven years of the most valuable part of his life in the drudgery of an apothecary's shop, the youth destined for the profession of sur gery should receive a learned and liberal education. The Latin language among the dead, and the French of the living, are indispensably necessary ; and the Ger man would form a very useful addition to these.
Anatomy and physiology are the next objects of attention, and demand the most assiduous cultivation; these sciences are the foundation on which the art of surgery rests. The study of chemistry and natural philosophy will be pursued at the same time. When prepared by these previous steps, the student may commence the practical part of his edu cation in the large hospitals of the metro polis; carefully studying diseases them. selves, taking notes of the most interest ing cases, and omitting no opportunity of observing the alteratiortwoccasioned by disease in the structure of the body.— Lectures on surgery, on the materia me dics, and the practice of medicine, must also be attended. The performance of surgical operations on the dead body will be highly beneficial, as leading to the study of those parts of anatomy, which are more particularly concerned in ope rations, and as imparting the manual skill necessary to the operator.
Of systematic works on surgery, there is none which unites the recommenda tions of clearness, shortness, and compre hension, to so great a degree, as the " First lines of the Practice of Surgery," by Mr. S. Cooper, to which we therefore refer the reader. The larger systems are by no means unexceptionable ; we may mention that of Latta ; the " Systems Chirurgiz hodiernz" of Callisen ; and the "Anfangs-grunde derWundarzney kunst" of Richter. Generally, however, the works that treat of particular subjects are to be preferred to the systems of sur gery. The writings of Mr. Pott, and the " Memoirs of the French Royal Academy of Surgery, contain a great deal of valu able information ; as also do those of John Hunter, Home, Abernethy, and Ast ley Cooper ; Le Dran, Sharp, Bertsandi, and Sabatier, may be read on the opera. lions. The numerous other sources of surgical knowledge will be discovered by the student in his progress. The follow ing sketch will be divided into general surgical subjects, or such disorders as are common to several situations in the body, including also the constitutional derange ments which accompany or cause local disorders ; and particular surgical sub jects, or the disorders and injuries of each particular part, and the operations practised on it. As the limits between surgery and medicine are rather artifi cial than real, these two branches of me dical science touch each other in various points, and the physician and surgeon both claim a right to undertake the ma nagement of the same disorder. Hence the article MEDICINE of this work con tains remarks on several diseases which are often treated by the surgeon ; and we refer the reader to that article on the following points, tit. fever, tetanus, re. chitis, scrofula, amaurosis, albugo, deaf ness, enuresis, ischuria, herpcs,tinea, and pont.