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John Allan Wyeth
(26 May 1845 - 28 May 1922)
American surgeon, soldier and author who established the New York Polyclinic Medical School and Hospital, the first in the U.S. to provide postgraduate instruction.
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Science Quotes by John Allan Wyeth (3 quotes)
Amputations are much less frequent now than formerly, and there is little doubt that, in the present rapid advance in the science of surgery, and the greater perfection in its art, the time is not far removed when amputations for other cause than gangrene will be comparatively rare.
— John Allan Wyeth
In A Text-Book on Surgery: General, Operative, and Mechanical (1887), 104.
He [General Nathan Bedford Forrest] possessed a remarkable genius for mathematics, a subject in which he had absolutely no training. He could with surprising facility solve the most difficult problems in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, only requiring that the theorem or rule be carefully read aloud to him.
— John Allan Wyeth
In Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest (1899), 627.
Of the various anesthetics which have been introduced for surgical use, only two deserve to be considered, and in order of preference they are ether and chloroform. In general, there is no comparison between these agents. Ether is so much safer than chloroform that the latter is fast disappearing in practice. In the present rapid progress of science it can not but be a short while until chloroform will only he employed in a very limited number of cases. The estimated death-rate after ether is 1 in 20,000, in chloroform 1 in 3,000. All of the objections to ether by the advocates of chloroform narcosis—namely, its slowness of action, irritation of the respiratory tract, nausea and vomiting, inflammability, extra quantity required, etc.—fade into insignificance when brought face to face with the fact that about seven lives are sacrificed by chloroform to one by ether.
— John Allan Wyeth
In A Text-Book on Surgery: General, Operative, and Mechanical (1887), 24.
See also:
- With Sabre and Scalpel; the Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon, by John Allan Wyeth. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
