Surgery

Maina-Miriam Munsky, "Eingriff IV (Chirurgs)", (1973)

Surgery is a medical specialty that uses operative techniques on a patient to treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.

Quotes

• I would like to see the day when somebody would be appointed surgeon somewhere who had no hands, for the operative part is the least part of the work.
  • Harvey Cushing, American surgeon, Letter to Henry Christian (November 20, 1911)

• I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
• [Words he used to refuse heart surgery the day before he passed away.]
  • Albert Einstein, Einsteins Legacy: The Final Chapter, Albert Einstein dies soon after a blood vessel bursts near his heart. American Museum of Natural History April 18, 1955

• Vulnera, quae melius non tetigisse fuit.
  • Some wounds grow worse beneath the surgeon's hand;
    'Twere better that they were not touched at all.
  • Ovid, Epistolae ex Ponto, III, vii, 25.

• Surgery is the red flower that blooms among the leaves and thorns that are the rest of medicine.
  • Richard Seltzer, American physician, Letters to a Young Doctor (1982)

• Surgery has a fascination possessed by few occupations. By its aid diseases and injury, incurable by nature alone or aided by altering the constitution of the body fluids, can be eradicated or assisted in such a way that natural processes are enabled to bring about a cure.
  • James Sherren (October 1, 1924)"An Address on the Value of Pathological and X Ray Examinations in Abdominal Surgery". The Lancet: 689–693.