MARVELS OF SURGERY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5430, 29 May 1929, Page 3

MARVELS OF SURGERY.

TWO BRAVE YOUNG BOYS. SAVED BY “SPARE PARTS.” Two boy marvels of surgery, Tom Mclntosh, aged 12, and Frank Capper, aged seven, are receiving considerable publicity in Melbourne, and surgeons state that neither would be alive today unless he was what they term “a good doer.” Adults similarly placed, the surgeons are certain, would not have recovered. It, was growing, insistent life that triumphed. Tommy was crushed in a motor accident and suffered a comminuted fracture of the pelvis. There were most serious complications of internal organs. Tubes were inserted to do the work of those crushed organs, while the surgeons got to work to allow Nature, assisted by Tommy’s bright spark of hope, to concentrate on the work of biological reconstruction. He bore great pain manfully. Fully a year passed before Tommy got out of bed and sat in a chair. One day the boy was allowed to stand on his feet. It was the queerest feeling he ever had. The blood rushing down those limbs, long unused, made a feeling like thousands of pins and needles being stuck red-hot into his feet and legs. Soon he was able to walk, and now he runs messages for the other patients, taking steps two at a time. One of the tubes is still in his stomach, and will have to be taken away later.. Tommy has been told that he will never be able to do hard work, but in view of the nature of his injuries it is remarkable that he should live to do any work at all. At the present time he is the “oldest inhabitant” at the children’s hospital, where he has been for 17 months. He is to go home within a week.

Frank Capper was nearly six when he swallowed a piece of caustic soda. For more than a year he did not swallow anything except exploring instruments which the surgeons pushed down into his stomach., The caustic soda had burned away the lining of an inch and a quarter of the oesophagus, and the scar which formed blocked it completely. If it had not been for surgery he would have died slowly of starvation. The oesophagus is the main food channel leading into the - stomach. The doctors punctured a hole in his stomach and put a tube in it through which he was fed for many months. It was not a matter of having meals at odd intervals with Frank. The rare occasion was when he got a rest from being fed through his tube. He had lost so much weight that the first need was that he should begin to build up strength and put on weight. It was not pleasant being always fed on milk and beaten egg, which he never had even the pleasure of tasting. Worse, it was sometimes painful to have- treatment from the surgeons in restoring natural food communication.

A piece of silk was pushed through the puncture, and through the oesophagus when a way was made, and thence out his mouth. Then the ends were tied together, so that this makes a sort of endless chain through Frank’s little body. About once a week it was pulled round. At first the pain was so great that the doctors administered an anaesthetic. Now the lad needs no balm and takes no notice of the operation. He has left the hospital after more than a year, and now he eats again, and eats in the ordinary way, though he still keeps the puncture apparatus as a sort of standby. At first his palate forgot the sense of taste, but it has now returned. The day will soon come when Frank will shed his spare parts and be a normal boy again.