AMPUTATIo LTD further, and in place of merely advocating intermit h in twenty-four hours, the prevailing idea.t would be better expressed by saying that 7 hour "the humane operation" is delayed, diminnces of a favourable issue. It to prove from any returns the full n. as the mere number who number of operations performed primarily or secondarily, by no means expresses the terms <>t' t on. It would manifestly be necessary to how many died before the secondary period came I, and to these should be added the victims of rierence, with all the pain and suffering K lay occasioned, before we can arrive at a just estimate of the results of either proceeding. The expiu cs of primary amputation, as contrasted with secondary, yet mor.
1. If we i certainly do, lictie all fear <>f intensifying the shock is obviated which was one reason why surgeons ved operation then the tendency ofmili - ery> ainath action of chloroform, must be to still uid more prompt; S >( I were much more early than the late p.-r' war, a cirthedeliei1't means of treat inu r I am led to understand, from a very well-informed source, that th. alao lost of all their secondary operations, but saved a f i!r BUte Of lip ir WA1I. the wounded in the camp during the former as compared with tin latter period, and thus the necessity that existed of despatching them from camp immediately being injured; and this, together with the Letter hygienic condition of the patients towards the end of the war, accounts for a fact, well known to those who served in the East, but which the range of the returns does not enable me to show in figures, that amputations were much more successful as a whole, towards the conclusion, than at the outset of the war.
At first too, when patients were early sent from camp, not a few operations, to my own knowledge, were performed during the " intermediary" period, and, without one exception, those thus falling within my observation were fatal. The tremendous destruction which was at times occasioned by round shot or shell, left little hope from any operation whatever. In the case of many, a " pansement de consolation " was the only alternative, while, in not a few, the injury was so severe, that, although amputation was performed, in the vain hope of a possible success, yet the apparent advantage of primary operation thereby suffered, and this circumstance is another of the many which makes it impossible to place this question in a fair light.