REPAIR OF LACERATIONS OF THE CERVIX UTERI.AN INVESTIGATION AS TO THE PROPER TIME FOR THE OPERATION

DANIEL H. CRAIG
1903 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)  
The following paper embodies the conclusions de¬ rived from an investigation covering one year and five months. At the outset all preformed opinions were re¬ linquished and a true spirit of unbiased investigation prevailed. Realizing that it is far easier to teach one wholly ignorant than to controvert preformed opinions, I placed myself in the attitude of a beginner. At the outset I was a partisan of certain operative pro¬ cedures and certain methods of technic, but this investi¬ gation has
more » ... wn me the narrowness of this attitude. The indications for any certain procedure or technic are inherent in the individual case, not in the predi¬ lection of the operator. It is, then, a modest following of the example of Herodotus in that it is "a setting forth of investigation." As a basis of my study I carefully tabulated the re¬ sults of one hundred tracheloplastic operations per¬ formed at the Free Hospital for Women. A majority of these operations were trachelorrhaphies. This num¬ ber wae selected, as the proportions also represent per¬ centages. Considering two years as a minimum allow¬ ance in which to observe the ultimate results of the operation, including its effects on subsequent pregnan¬ cies, I began at Jan. 1, 1900, and worked back until replies were received from one hundred women. So difficult is it to trace these nomadic patients that my one hundred include cases in which from two to five years have elapsed since the operation. Reporting cases under two years would easily have enabled me to tabulate results of several hundred cases, but would have lessened the actual scientific value of the deductions.
doi:10.1001/jama.1903.92490370011001c fatcat:5bmyq4vllnadtpvprrlk4wxhdi