A General System of Surgery in Three Parts

Title continues: "Containing the Doctrine and Management I. Of Wounds, Fractures, Luxations, Tumours, and Ulcers, of all Kinds. II. Of the several Operations performed on all Parts of the Body. III. Of the several Bandages applied in all Operations and Disorders. The Whole illustrated with Thirty Eight Copper-Plates, exhibiting all the Operations, Instruments, Bandages, and Improvements, according to the Modern and most approved Practice. To which is prefixed an Introduction Concerning the Nature, Origin, Progress, and Improvements of Surgery; With such other Preliminaries as are necessary to be known by the Younger Surgeons. Being a Work of Thirty Years Experience." According to Garrison and Morton, Heister was the founder of scientific surgery in Germany and was the inventor of a spinal brace. This work was the most popular surgical book of the 18th century. Nevertheless, modern readers may find the procedures illustrated by the plates very primitive indeed. See the plate opposite Part I, p. 350 for illustrations of amputations which required several assistants to hold the patient down. The patient looks surprisingly serene.