The great advance which has been made in surgical science and practice is shown in two ways:  first, in a great increase of courage, by which the surgeon has been led on to the performance of operations that were hitherto considered rash, audacious or impossible; and secondly, by the immunity which the surgeon has gained in the treatment of wounds through the increased knowledge he possesses of putrefaction and the means of preventing it.  It were hard to say whether the surgeon’s increase of skill and courage in performing operations has equalled his increased skill in the after treatment of wounds.

These improvements have all proceeded from scientific investigation.  They have come of the application of scientific methods to the treatment of surgical diseases.  With the investigations of Pasteur and the development of the science of bacteriology, it was seen at a glance how large an influence such investigation must have in the work of the surgeon.  The publication of Tyndall’s “Essays on the Floating Matter of the Air in Relation to Putrefaction and Infection,” in 1881, gave a great impulse to the new practice; but that practice had been already confirmed by the great and original work of Sir Joseph Lister, an English surgeon who as early as 1860 had introduced the antiseptic method of bandaging.

It is within the last forty years that the greatest marvels of modern surgery have been performed.  It would seem that no part of the human body is now beyond the reach of surgical remedy.  Almost every year has witnessed some new and daring invasion of the fortress of life with a view to saving it.  Old opinions with respect to what parts of the human economy are really vital have been abolished; and a new concept of the relation of life to organism has prevailed.

Until recently it was supposed that the peritoneal cavity and the organs contained therein, such as the stomach, the liver, the bowels, etc., could not be entered by the surgeon without the certain result of death.  To do so at the present time is the daily experience in almost every great hospital.  The complexity of civilization has inflicted all manner of hurts on the human body, and the malignity of disease has spared no part.  It was supposed that the cranial cavity could not be entered or repaired without producing fatal results.  It was taken for granted that certain organs could not be touched, much less treated capitally, without destroying the subject’s life.  But one exploration has followed another and one successful adventure has been succeeded by another still more successful until the surgeon’s work is at the present time performed within a sphere that was until recently supposed to be entirely beyond his reach.