Rush Medical College - Pulse Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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llbrof. umfs Surgical Iinic KNEVV Dr. Gunn's clinic when it was in the transition period from the septic to the aseptic condition. Carbolic acid was being used freely. You could tell a clinic assistant, for his hands were shriveled up from live per cent. and he smelled of iodoform. I don't know much about the truth or falsity of the statements concerning bacteria, Dr. Gunn would sayg but I do know thatif I wash my hands and wash my patient and my instruments, and use carbolic acid and iodoform, I can accomplish results that I never dreamed of fifteen years ago. The clinic was chiefly the ambulatory clinic. The Presbyterian Hospital was beginning to furnish a case or two occasionally, and we began to have a foretaste of what we saw realized later in the hospital surgical clinic, of the gigantic proportions it assumed under Prof. Parkes and his successors. The best clinical surgical teaching ever done in Rush College is being done to-day. But the practical value of the clinical cases we saw in Dr. Gunn's clinic is not to be underestimated. To see the case come before the Professor and the class, new to bothg to hear him extract the history in his quick, energetic way, make his diagnosis, and give advice as to treatment, to see the patient put to sleep, the operation performed, the patient recover from the anaesthesia, all perhaps in the course of thirty or forty minutes, was a lesson in rapid practical surgery not to be forgotten. Dr. Gunn was always on time. Only once do I remember his being late. XVe assistants looked at our watches in astonishment, for it was two minutes past two. just then we heard ablowing and puffing in the hall, and Dr. Gunn, with a very red face, rushed by us into the arena, the while cursing the swing bridges over the Chicago river that had detained him. He was gruff and touchy all that clinic hour. He couldn't bear to be a single minute late. To his assistants Dr. Gunn was ever courteous and kind if they did their duty. Any neglect was promptly reprimanded. He was rapid as an operator. He liked to have a patient stand an operation without anaesthesia. XYhen such an operation was to be done, the assistants knew that things must go without a hitch. It meant as rapid an operation as Moses Gunn could perform, so as to save the patient as much suffering as possible. NVoe to the man who was not ready when the forceps or scissors or ligature was called for. ---Y-, said he to one of the assistants, don't ever hand me as dull a knife again: I could ride from here to Boston and back again on that knife without a saddle. The assistant never gave him a dull knife again. The clinics in those days varied in size. On a rainy day scarcely a patient, on a fair day, an overdowing clinic. NVhen the last patient had gone, whether the clinic had lasted ten minutes or two hours, Dr. Gunn always turned to the class and said, That is all for to-day, gentlemen. Those of us who were under Moses Gunn, and particularly those who had the privilege of assisting him in his clinical work, feel that we owe a great deal to him, for he taught us sound surgical knowledge, sound practical surgery. He taught us the value of clean-cut rapid work, the value of time in an operation. He taught us, in addition, the value of promptness, of courtly bearing, of honorable treatment of professional brethren, the value of positiveness of opinion, of honest confession of ignorance, of manly conduct in all things. DR. bl. H. Hisaalciq. 53

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