Part 1

Transcriber's Note

In this plain text version of A Dissertation on the Inutility of the Amputation of Limbs:

Words in italics are marked with underscores. Small capital letters are shown in upper case.

Original spellings, punctuation, inconsistencies and apparent printers' errors are retained (see note at end of book for exceptions).

Footnotes have been moved to the end of sections.

A DISSERTATION ON THE INUTILITY OF THE

Amputation of Limbs.

Written in Latin, by M. BILGUER, Surgeon General to the Armies of the King of PRUSSIA. Augmented with the Notes of Mr. TISSOT, Physician at LUSANNE.

Now first Translated into ENGLISH,

By a SURGEON.

LONDON:

Printed for R. BALDWIN, at the Rose, in Paternoster-Row, and T. BECKET and P. A. DE HONDT, in the Strand.

MDCCLXIV.

ADVERTISEMENT,

By the ENGLISH Translator.

It is with particular pleasure I present the English reader with a translation of Mr. Bilguer's celebrated performance: It will meet, I doubt not, with the approbation of those, who have the true honour of surgery at heart, and are at the same time friends to humanity. After what is said by so eminent a judge as Dr. Tissot, as well as many others who are an ornament to the profession, I shall not launch out into any eulogium on the author: there is a spirit of modesty, candour and ingenuity runs through the whole, that to every sensible reader will prove a sufficient recommendation of the work.----If it in the least contributes to check the cruel and precipitate practice of taking off limbs that might be saved, thereby preserving the lives, as well as preventing the mutilation of numbers of our fellow creatures, I shall think myself amply recompenced for the labour I have taken in thus endeavouring to render Mr. Bilguer's beneficent design more extensively known.

Speedily will be published,

Translation of Dr. TISSOT'S last Work,

ENTITLED,

Avis au Peuple sur sa Santé.

By JAMES KIRKPATRICK, M. D.

DR. PRINGLE,

Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty, Fellow of the Royal Society, &c.

SIR,

Your excellent work on the Diseases of the Army, so useful to physicians in general, will always be considered as a standard for the practice of those in particular, who are intrusted with the important office of superintending the health of the soldiery. Mr. Bilguer has performed, on his part, what you have so ably done on yours, in pointing out to his colleagues and successors, the plan which they ought to follow. It has given me pleasure to translate his Dissertation, and you must derive a peculiar satisfaction from the perusal of it, because, from the extensive and painful experience you have had of the bad consequences resulting from the operation this able Surgeon so warmly opposes, you can more readily perceive the usefulness and value of this little work. It is therefore my duty to address it to you, and I eagerly embrace so favourable an opportunity of thus publicly declaring the sentiments of esteem and particular respect, with which I have the honor to be,

SIR, Your most humble, and Most obedient Servant,

TISSOT.

Lausanne, 1 April, 1764.