WITHOUT INJURY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 83, 5 October 1931, Page 3

WITHOUT INJURY

RAZOR BLADE REMOVED

A Pittsburgh boy who swallowed a double-edged razor blade has a new chance of life, due to the skill of surgeons, who made hospital history when they removed the steel .blade, says the "New York Times." The patient is Morris Dye, 17 years old, now recovering at the Homeopathic Hospital.

For perhaps the < first time in surgical annala doctors were successful in removing a dbublc-cdgcd blado, although there are records of single-blade removals. The doctors, with Dr. W. B. Shepard as chief surgeon, used the instrument and the procedu.ro perfected by Dr. Chevalier Jackson, of Philadelphia. Dye, who had been a patient at Mayview, went to the Homeopathic Hospital after he had swallowed two safety pins. The- safety pins passed through his throat and lodged in his stomach without apparent injury to the boy, doctors/said. Then, borrowing a razor blade from a fellow-patient, he wrapped it in paper and swallowed it at about 1 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. A nurse learned of this act, and X-rays shoAvedthe blade lodged in the membranous tubes midway to the stomach. An esophagoscope was used in the operation. The instrument, a long, narrow cylinder with a small electric bulb attached, was inserted into the throat. A pair of forceps grasped the blade. Skilled and steady fingers succeeded in lifting it out of thetubo without cutting or injuring the tissue. The operation lasted eight minutes.