SURGICAL SCIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 19387, 22 October 1926, Page 8

SURGICAL SCIENCE

MUSSOLINI’S TRIBUTE Speaking to liis fellow-Rotarians at a lunch meeting at Auckland on tlio subject of ins profession, Dr Kenneth Mackenzie read the following striking tribute which was deliveml to the seventh congress of the International Society of Surgery in Romo, by Signor Renito Mussolini, head of the Italian Government

“I bring tho welcome of the Italian Government to you, eminent masters of that surgeon’s art, thanks to which medical science, through tho centuries, has achieved some of its greatest and most glorious victories. The word which designates your art, gentlemen, does not fully indicate its ideal bearing and human worth. The Greek root of the word ‘ surgery ’ lias but , a modest meaning ‘ work of the hand ’; but the most luminous qualities of the mind and the deepest energies of mind and character must guide and support that hand in the work it performs with ever-growing success in its efforts to save, with tho help of the knife, human lives threatened by disease that is no longer invincible. “Dating back to most remote ages, your art first rose to the dignity of a science on Italian soil, and, casting off its lirst profane followers, received its laws and became a science under tho learned guidance of the School of Salcrmo. Proceeding from that school, it was honored in the Renaissance by the four great masters, to whom it still looks up with devotion as its most revered patrons, Andrea Yesalio, Wurtzius, Paracelsus, and Ambroise Pare.

“ I need not remind you that Pare, as surgeon to Francis 11., Charles IX., and Henry HI., accompanied their armies in their long campaigns, and when bending over the grievously wounded soldiers lie succeeded in saving their i'ast-ebhing lives, more especially thanks to the system he lirst introduced of tying the arteries instead of cauterising them in cases of amputation. When imminent death retreated before the prodigy of restored life, Ambroise Parc, raising his eyes to heaven, used to exclaim, with exemplary modesty, ‘Je le pancai. Dieu le guarist.’ But no, he did not only dress the wounds, he cured. And where death was destroying man intervened to restore life. “ The seven volumes of ono_ of the most famous works on tho history of surgery are entitled ‘De Corporis Humana Fabrica.’ Masters of anatomy, you are indeed the second masters of the human body. With firm wrist, cunning hand, stern heart, and cool, lucid brain, you have gradually snatched from the insidious attacks of d’seaso most of the obscure regions of the body. “As a soldier in the Great War, I had an opportunity of experiencing for a long time your skill on my own body, and so did millions and millions of wounded.

“ I greet in you the wonderful saviours of innumerable lives, the victorious heroes of the ambulances. Isut while soldiers get rest—for even the fiercest wars must have an end—you never rest from your war upon disease. Until the last days of your life you remain ever on the field of action, intent in the effort to save the wounded in life’s conflict whoso tragic hosts are yet more numerous than those who fall on the field of battle. Tf all men worthy of that name are soldiers in their country’s hour of trial, you are the untiring soldiers in the daily battle against disease. I am glad to see you assembled in such impressive numbers as our guests in Horae, and beg you to accept, with my cordial greeting, the expression of my admiration and esteem.’’