Wounds of the brain proved curable, not only by the opinion and experience of many (the best) authors, but the remarkable history of a child four years old cured of two very large depressions, with the loss of a great part of the skull, a portion of the brain also issuing thorough a penetrating wound of the dura and pia mater…

Probably the first monograph in English on surgery of the head and brain. Yonge was a naval surgeon who set up in practice in Plymouth after he gave up the sea. He had just performed the operation for an injury of the head outlined in the title of his book when a local physician, Dr. Durston, asserted that wounds of the brain were always fatal. To prove this was untrue, Yonge published this book, which includes details of the operation in great detail, followed by extracts from and references to 65 earlier authors, five of whom are English.