Post-Mortem Pathology

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. This book has been written for those who ought to make autopsies but do not and for those of whom such investigations are required, as medical students, hospital interns, and coroners physicians. While it would seem to be quite needless to urge upon a practitioner the importance of performing post-mortem examinations, it is a fact that extremely few are made outside of hospitals, and even there necropsies are usually conducted by the untrained resident or the substitute of the pathologist. It cannot be questioned, however, that the physician who improves his opportunities for pathological study on the cadaver will be a better diagnostician and safer therapist, will have a more enduring reputation, and will receive a greater pecuniary return than he who neglects such means of investigating morbid processes.

While the author has mainly relied upon his personal experiences in the preparation of the subject-matter of this manual, he has freely used classifications and material derived from Orth's PathologischAnatomische Diagnostik, Osler's Practice of Medicine, Nauwerck's Sections-Technik, and other publications mentioned in the foot-notes and in the text. He is, therefore, much indebted to these authorities, as well as to Dr. George Robinson and Mr. Louis Schmidt for most of the drawings, all of which were prepared under the writer's direction, to his friends and former students Drs. William S. Wadsworth, Mary E.Lapham, E.D. Burkhard, and Edward Lodholz for suggestions in the preparation of the book, and to that excellent proof-reader Mr. T. Grow Taylor for seeing the work through the press.