Note 50 — Chapter XLIII · THE THORAX AND ITS CONTENTS.

Borchardt has collected 83 cases of operations upon the heart, of which 78 included heart suture. Of these 78, 46 died and 32 recovered. He quotes a statement of Billroth, made when this surgeon was sixty years of age: “Paracentesis of the pericardium is an operation which, according to my view, closely approaches to what might be considered a prostitution of surgical art, or, as some surgeons would call it, a surgical frivolity, an operation which altogether has more interest for the anatomist than for the physician. Possibly a later generation will regard it differently. Internal medicine is constantly becoming more surgical, and those physicians who concern themselves especially with internal medicine will find themselves compelled to make the most daring operation.” The rapid advances made in surgery during the past three decades cannot be better illustrated than by contrasting Billroth’s statement of a few years ago with the standard practice of today.