or where the importance of not injuring the moral sense of students has not been recognised.
The great increase in ovariotomy, and its extension to the insane, is so notable a result of this prurigo secandi that it becomes a serious question whether the practice of ovariotomy, though sometimes beneficent, is not on the whole a disastrous discovery, and whether it should not be regarded as a confession of medical impotence, of insanitary education and social corruption, rather than as a satisfactory triumph of surgical skill. The destruction of motherhood is either a martyrdom or a degradation. In no case can it be boasted of as 'brilliant surgery.'
Dr. Chanu, in his carefully prepared thesis of
bring their names before the public, "to seek out some operation unknown in France, then seek out a victim on whom they can perform it, in order to report it before a medical society, and perhaps also show the patient." Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation as a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a reputation. Professor Verneuil protests against the abuse of operations in general, and especially of gynaecological operations. He deplores the prurigo secandi with which so many of the French surgeons are attacked. Professor Duplay and Professor Tillaux express the same opinions.' See Medical Reprints, May, 1893.
