A Manual of the Operations of Surgery

A Manual of the Operations of Surgery for the use of senior students, house surgeons, and junior practitioners written by Joseph Bell, a Scottish surgeon and lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in the 19th century. He is best known as an inspiration for the literary character Sherlock Holmes.

Author's Preface:

Having been asked, year after year, by the members of my Class for Operative Surgery, to recommend to them some Manual of Surgical Operations which might at once guide them in their choice of operations, and give minute details as to the mode of performance, I have been gradually led to undertake the production of this little work.

My aim has been to describe as simply as possible those operations which are most likely to prove useful, and especially those which, from their nature, admit of being practised on the dead body.