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[Address of the Chairman of Section on Surgery and Anatomy.]
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the American Medical Association:
The subject-matter of the remarks to be presented this morning was suggested to me by an article published in the British Medical Journal in 1882, from the pen of “that good man among men, and great man among doctors,” J. Marion Sims.
The article in question was an appeal for operative interference in penetrating gun-shot wounds of the abdomen, in lieu of the “expectant treatment” so universally accepted and adopted by the profession, and which, in a few seemingly well authenticated instances, has led to recovery.
The appeal was uttered in behalf of the vast majority on the side of fatality attending these cases, and was based upon the deductions to be drawn from the recoveries following operations for diseases affecting the viscera of the abdomen and pelvis, during which the