Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 813

WILLIAM CHESELDEN (1688-1752) A treatise on the high operation for the stone. Printed for John Osborn 1723 [4] xi [1] 188 (misnumbered 180) pp., 17 plates. 20 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 810

In this monograph, dedicated to Mead (see No. 766 ff.), Cheselden reports on nine patients he operated on for vesical calculi by the suprapubic route. Eight of the patients survived the operation and one died later from an unrelated illness. In 1727 Cheselden abandoned this method for the perineal approach. A good anatomist, he warned of the danger of opening the peritoneum during the suprapubic operation and explained how the peritoneum between the symphysis pubis and the bladder must be stripped off the anterior-superior portion of the bladder before the bladder is opened. Lithotomy had been done almost exclusively by French surgeons until 1719 when John Douglas (d. 1743) made the first of four suprapubic operations. In what was probably an innocent omission, Cheselden failed to mention this fact in his book. As a result, Douglas bitterly criticized Cheselden and accused him of plagiarism. Cheselden also made a valuable historical contribution by including several translations on suprapubic lithotomy in his book: Pierre Franco's (1500-1561) "High operation" from his Traité des hernies (Lyons, 1561), François Rousset's (1535-1590?) "Treatise on the high operation for the stone" from his Hysterotomotokias [Greek title transliterated] (Paris, 1590), Pierre Le Mercier's (fl. 1630) "A question proposed to be disputed on in the phisick-schools in Paris on Thursday, December 13, 1635, whether or no in cutting for the stone in the bladder the incision should be made at the pubes?," Fabricius' (see No. 396) "Of the high operation for the stone" from his De lithotomia (Frankfurt, 1682), Tolet's (see No. 660) "On the high operation" from the fifth edition of his Traité de la lithotomie (Paris, 1718), and Dionis' "On the high operation" from the second edition of his Cours d'operations de chirurgie (see No. 650). An interesting appendix contains "Two cases to shew that Wounds into the Abdomen are not exceeding Dangerous though the Guts should appear, or thrust out at the Wound."

See Related Record(s): 766 396 660 650

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 4282; Waller 1939; Wellcome II, p. 335

Gift of John Martin, M.D.