[28] As the surgeon will find it most convenient to stand on his own right side of the limb to be removed, the knife will be entered on the palmar side of the radius of the right arm, of the ulna of the left. [29] Teale, _On Amputation by Rectangular Flaps_, pp. 46-48. [30] Johnson's folio ed., p. 342. [31] Gross's _Surgery_, 6th ed. vol. ii. p. 1103. [32] _International Encyclopædia of Surgery_, vol. i. p. 641. [33] Spence's _Surgery_, pp. 800, 801. [34] Gross's _Surgery_, 8vo., 6th ed., vol. ii., p. 1106. [35] _Excision of Scapula_, p. 33. [36] Hey's _Observations_, 3d ed. pp. 552, 556. [37] Roux's _Parallel between English and French Surgery_. Translation abridged from Cooper's _Surgical Dictionary_, p. 106. [38] Syme's _Principles_, 4th edit. p. 145. [39] _International Encyclopædia_, vol. 1. p. 655. [40] _Observations in Clin. Surgery_, p. 48. [41] _Monthly Journal of Medical Science for 1849_, vol. ix. p. 951. [42] _Med. Times and Gazette_, June 3, 1865. [43] _Operative Surgery_, p. 170. [44] _Annali Universali de Medicina_, Milano, 1857. [45] _Med. Chir. Transactions of London_, vol. liii., p. 175. [46] Carden's (of Worcester) Pamphlet, pp. 5, 6; and _British Medical Journal_, 1864. [47] B. Bell's _Surgery_, 6th ed. vol. vii. pp. 336-339. [48] In diagram the amputation is drawn as if for middle third of thigh. [49] Teale, _op. cit._, pp. 34, 39. [50] _Edin. Med. Journal_, for April 1863. [51] _Edin. Medical Journal_, March 1879. CHAPTER III. EXCISION OF JOINTS. _Historical._--Beyond a passage ascribed to Hippocrates, but of very doubtful authenticity, and slight allusions in the works of Celsus and Paulus Ægineta, the ancients give us no information whatever on this subject. Hippocrates says,--"Complete resections of bones in the neighbourhood of joints both in the foot, in the hand, in the tibia up to the malleoli, and in the ulna at its junction with the hand, and in many other places, are safe operations, if that fatal syncope does not at once occur, and continued fever does not attack the patient on the fourth day." Celsus and Ægineta both advise the removal of protruding ends of bone in compound dislocations, but without giving any cases. From the days of these classic fathers of Surgery, we have hardly an indication of any attention whatever having been paid to their hints till quite within the last hundred years. The first distinct publication on the subject was by Henry Park of Liverpool, in a letter to Percival Pott in 1783. He proposed the removal of the articulating extremities of diseased elbow and knee-joints to obtain cures. He says he was led to this by its having been the invariable custom, for more than thirty years, at the Liverpool Infirmary, to take off the protruded extremities of bones in cases of compound dislocation.