EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF SURGICAL SKILL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 449, 30 January 1909, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF SURGICAL SKILL.

Mr. Rockfki.lkk, describing in the World’s Work the art of giving, gives some results of the institute of medical research which bears his name. As a result of the vivisection of some fifteen animals, hundreds of human lives had been saved. One story belongs to the romance of science.' A young surgeon had spent several days with Dr. Alexis Carrel in the institute, and admired his methods. This young surgeon had a child born early last March “ which developed a disease in which the blood exudes from the blood-vessels into the tissues of the body, and ordinarily the child dies from internal hemorrhage.” When the child was five days old it was evidently dying. The case was pronouced hopeless. But the father insisted on Dr. Carrel being called in to try the new methods of transfusion of blood. The father offered himself as the person whose blood should be furnished to the child. It was impossible to give anaesthetics to either of them. In a child of that age there is only one vein large enough to be used, and that is in the back of the leg, and deepseated. A prominent surgeon who was present exposed this vein. He said afterwards that there was no sign of life in the child, and expressed the beliief that the child had been, to all intents and purposes, dead for ten minutes. In view of its condition he raised the question whether it was worth while to proceed with the attempt. The father, however, insisted upon going on, and the surgeon then exposed the radial artery in the father’s wrist; and was obliged to dissect it back about six inches, in order to pull it out far enough to make the connection with the

child’s vein. This part of the work the surgeon who did it afterwards described as the “ blacksmith part of the job.” He said that the child’s vein was about the size of a match, and the consistency of wet cigarette paper, and it seemed utterly impossible for anyone to successfully unite these two vessels. Dr. Carrel, however, accomplished this feat And then occurred what the doctors who were present described as one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of surgery. The blood from the father’s artery was released and began to flow into the child’s body, amounting to about a pint. The first sign of life was a little pink tinge at the top of one of the ears, then the lips, which had become perfectly blue, began to change to red, and then suddenly, as thogugh the child had been taken from a hot mustard bath a pink glow broke out all over its body, and it began to cry lustily. Alter about eight minutes the two were separated. The child at that time was crying for food. It was fed, and from that moment began to eat and sleep regu’arly, and made a complete recovery.