MODERN MIRACLES OF HEALING

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2837, 31 July 1916, Page 4

MODERN MIRACLES OF HEALING

AMAZING RECORD OF MARVELS

"Some small part of what humanity is sbeihg .MURTged for This war," said a distinguished surgeon the other day, "is being paid back by what it has taught to surgery." And* it is a fact that tho daring skill which the surgeon has acquired is being used lo make life once more of its own value .to men wheso hideous injuries riiafis- them, beg to lie destroved. In a town within earshot of the guns (writes H. I'. Provost Battersl>y, in the "Daily Express'') such miracles are being performed ili repairing their injuries that one scarcely, dares to describe them without more convincing evidence than words can supply. One writes of them to bring hope again to those who may be boneless, because cases have been successfully treated "hero which have been abandoned elsewhere by the most sfciiWd operators. We have grown used to the inconceivable things the surgeon performs inside ns—tho patching-up of our hcarts,thc short-cir-cuiting of our digestions. These may be tlic'moro wonderful achievements, but they do not move us as does the reconstruction of a face, a third of which had dftctppearEr. Here, for example, is a case where nothing remains below the tragic eyes but n. gf.ping wound that Teaches deep into the neek—nose, palate, tongue, teeth, jaw, n": are. gone. 'No man who had so «cen himself could have wished to live an instant longer; it seemed, indeed, unlikely that he could survive such injuries. Yet to-day that man, save for. an honourable scar.. is not noticeably different from his fellows. His nose was rebuilt, skin from his neck being taken to cover it: an artificial palate, carrying a row of teeth, supplied a foundation over which fragments of the upper lip van gathered, grafts lieing gradually added to restore the shape.

Astonishing Cases. What was left of, the lower jaw was stretched forward and drawn together, tho missing bony framework was built ap, flesh was modelled upon it, and both ckiit and Up restored. The man can chew now even ration biscuits, .and, thanks to a pair of handsome eyes, he is still noticeably like what he once was, and his new nose is certainly an improvement. '

In another instance, a man had- received « "shell slap" in the face —that is, a graze from an uuexploded shell, which had removed his lips, his teeth, and the front of his lower jaw. After a jaw and lips had been remodelled and the teeth restored, skin from the scalp above the ear was grafted to the new flesh, and an excellent moustache produced, which effectually screened aDy possible seams in the mending.

Tho case of an officer may bo mentioned who was discharged from hospital so disfigured that lie dared aiot show his face, unable to masticate, having been kept alive for sixteen months, in which ho had lost five stono by liquid poured, t'm'ough a tubo. He is now m hospital, his looks restored to liiin, and eating so heartily that; his appetite has to be restrained.. Another even sadder case of disfigurement, who used daily to "bog doctors and nurses to put him out of his misery, has just written from England that ho is engaged to be married, and is the happiest man alive.. Nature's Help. At Home most laudable attempts have been made with tinted masks to bring back some human semblance to mutilated faces, to save them from the shrinking of those for whom they have sulfered, but the man's own fear of his difigurcnient remains, and his own life is spoilt % that lasting dread of himself and of his fellows' ever seeing him as ho is. Here, whero Jiaturc is made to do the mending, no vestige of the haunting terror remains.

Indeed, the men are even proud of tho wonders their owji vitality has performed. One of them seemed quite elated by tho reflection that he was now chewing" with what had once been a rib, and another that his facial appearance .had. been greatly improved by a piece of his tibia. I'or it is necessary to mso living flesh for filling in the gaps, and that flesh or bono has to bo taken from tho patient's oody, a doublo operation being thus required, winch sometimes extends tho length of it to several hours, and makes more remarkable tho results attained, seeing that such patients have, as a rule, suffered severely from shock and their vital 'resilience been lowered by the difficulty of feeding them. There is, doubtless, something curative in the operator's undauntablo confidence in what skill and endless patienco may work on wreckage, where what remain's of human likeness is tho most awful thing about it. He revels in restoring to tho image of its Jlakor shapes that exceed in .horror the devilish gTotesriueries of the medieval masons, and finds in his success more than sufficient coinoensation for the heavy sacrifices it has entailed; and, so long as he remains to work the miracles, none need despair of being ablo again to look without apprehension in the eyes of his fellows.