Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 3. (Budapest, 1956)

J. BALOGH, M. D.: The hungarian traumatic surgery in the first part of the 19th century

generation to generation and the doctor cmade his choice of the wealth of evidence available to him according to his liking. In O. H. there already appears a paper written in regard to statistics. Balassa, in a series dealing with the indications of amputations, analyses and compares the more extensive experiences and more detailed statistics published in foreign contries with oneanother. János Ambro, a G. P. and surgeon in Kisújszállás, was the first, in 1868, in this country, to postulate the necessity of insurance for workers, industrial and agricultural, in the light of statistical data collected by himself. He urged that the owners of threshers and other machines introduce measures to protect the workers! In the following we present a few extracts from his original work: Section V. The changes resulting from injury take, when sufficient care is taken, a rather favourable course in the country. „•.... the decreased vulnerability of our people may in part be responsible for the fact that the incidence of shock, paralysing the nervous system and circulation, is rather low after injury". Author carried out 25 amputations, of which 15 were the result of mechanical trauma sustained in accidents: run-over by railway engine, crushing by mill-stone, thresher, chaffcutter, oil press. The operations were performed under the most unfavourable conditions, on the most neglected and poorest men. One patient was lost. Authour devoted particular attention to the precise arrest of haemorrhage, to cleanliness (of the room in which the operation vas carried out, of surgical instruments etc.) and that the stump be made as comfortable as possible. „The causes that made the above operations necessary are those ascribable to advance in industrialisation: run-overs by railway engine, injury caused by agricultural machinery, >... the soft parts ... reduced to pulp are so lacerated that the only thing to be done is primary amputation. The accidents occuring while