THE NONOPERATIVE TREATMENT OF SURGICAL CONDITIONS IN CHILDREN

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Abstract
As the derivation of the word surgeon from its Greek roots indicates–however much to the dismay of today's cerebral practitioners of the craft–the surgeon is a manual worker. The operative act is so central to surgery and to the life of the surgeon that it has come almost to be equated with surgery and, although I decry it, the word surgery frequently replaces the word operation. The fact is, nevertheless, that operation, being the application of a mechanical technique to disease, is properly employed in the solution of mechanical problems. It is true that, in the past and in the present, some of the most brilliant achievements of surgery have been in the cure or correction of dangerous diseases certainly not mechanically caused, for which there was no nonoperative treatment. This was certainly true until recently for exophthalmic goiter and for that matter, while all would agree that ultimately some nonoperative method will prevail, there are many patients still–and children specifically–in whom I, among others, think hyperthyroidism is still best treated by operation. Nothing else is quite so successful as operation in the treatment of duodenal ulcer or most forms of cancer, yet all of us will accept the fact that in the end, since these are, except in their late stages, not mechanical diseases, specific and nonoperative treatments will be devised which will aim at directly reversing the causative mechanisms. It is precisely in this sort of a search that surgeons are constantly engaged. True enough, as surgeons, we believe that operations are unequivocally good for people.

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