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career he tied the common carotid artery forty-six times, cut for stone
one hundred and sixty-five times, and amputated nearly one thousand
limbs. His old preceptor, Sir Astley Cooper, proud of the distinction
won by his favorite pupil, said of him exultingly: "He has performed
more of the great operations than any man living, or that ever did
live."
When he was but thirty-three years old (in 1818) he placed a ligature
around the bracheo-cephalic trunk or arteria innominata, within two
inches of the heart, for aneurism of the right subclavian artery. This
was the first time this wonderful operation had ever been performed, and
the skill and success with which he accomplished it stamped him as one
of the brightest lights of his profession. "The patient survived the
operation twenty-eight days, and thus demonstrated the feasibility of
this hazardous and thus far unparalleled undertaking. He discovered in
this case that, though all supply of blood to the blood-vessels of the
right arm was apparently cut off, the circulation was kept up by the
interosculating blood-vessels, the pulsation at the wrist maintained,
and no evidence of loss of vitality or warmth manifested in the limb.
The patient finally died from secondary hemorrhage."
In 1828 he performed successfully the most difficult and dangerous
operation known to surgery. A clergyman called upon him to remove an
enormous tumor in the neck, in which were imbedded and twisted many of
the great arteries. In this operation it became necessary to take out
entire the right clavicle or collar bone, to lay bare the membrane which
surrounds the lungs, to search for and dissect around the arteries which
ran through the tumor, to make forty ligatures, and to remove an immense
mass of diseased matter. This terrible operation had never been
attempted before, and was performed by Dr. Mott without the aid of
chloroform; yet it was done so skillfully that the patient survived it,
and in 1865 was still living and discharging his ministerial duties. It
was thirty years before it was attempted again in any part of the world.
It was a great triumph of the genius of the operator, and won him
praises from men of science in all countries.
In 1821 "he performed the first operation for osteo-sarcoma of the lower
jaw. In 1822 he introduced his original operation for immobility of the
lower jaw. He was the first surgeon who removed the lower jaw for
necrosis, and the first to tie successf
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