Read in the Section of Surgery and Anatomy of the American Medical Association, May, 1884.
While no welcome awaits the advent of a new danger in surgical practice, a cordial reception should be extended to the recognition of its existence.
Such knowledge is the beacon-light, which announces a threatening evil, and may prevent its occurrence. Forewarned is forearmed. The recognition, and not the danger, is new. Newton's discovery was only the new knowledge of a fact in the economy of nature as old as the universe. Dr. Bright, in 1827, published his recognition of diseased tissues, but albuminuria may have vexed the children of men since the flood. Many a victim, with a bronzed skin, and pearl-white sclerotic surrendered an enfeebled life, before the disease had received from Dr. Addison "a local habitation and a name." So who can tell how many deaths had followed the entrance of air into