PAINLESS SURGERY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1086, 22 August 1912, Page 4

PAINLESS SURGERY.

A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY

Surgery has been rendered painless. The lopping off of a limb or the removal ol a diseased part is effected without any conscious pain to the victim. But the patient has always had at the back of his mind the knowledge that when the effect of the anaesthetic is gone his sufferings will be proportionate to the severity of bis operation. Dr F. W. Forbes Ross, writing to the Lancet from New Cavendish Street, claims to have discovered a remedy for the after pains in a safe form of local anaesthesia, which can be continued until the wound caused by the operation is completely healed. “I claim," he writes, “that it is possible by the infiltration of the area of an operation wound before making that wound with a solution of quinine and urea hydrochloride to produce a total absence ol any reactionary pain in the area of operation after the patient has recovered from the effects of the general anaesthetic. . . . ‘‘The patient is first put under a general anaesthetic, and the surgeon proceeds to make multiple injections of a sterilised solution of quinine and urea hydrochloride all over and around the site of his proposed Incisions and manipulations, The effect of these injections is to produce an almost total loss of sensation for a length ol lime ranging from twenty-four hours to six days, with absolutely no return or vestige of post-opera-tive pain, until healing is complete, and a minimum of operative and post-operative shock. The vitality of the tissues injected is not jeopardised ; indeed, the absence of pain abolishes to a large extent reactionary states in the tissues and tends to promote rapid healing.

“My experience so far has been,” adds the doctor, “that from the moment of the completion of an operation until the skin has healed, the patient is not conscious of injury to the parts operated on.”

Speaking to a Daily News and Deader representative, Dr Forbes Ross said he had performed abont fifteen to twenty operations with the use ot his post-operative auaesthelic. They included such operations as the removal of the appendix, removal of the breast and tumours, and ot varicose veins in both limbs. He had generally found that one injection at the time ot the operation was sufficient, but if the wound was not healed by the lime the deadening effect of the injection wore off the dose could be repealed without hurt. A fresh injection could be made at any time. It was not poisonous ; it did not set up a bad habit.

His experience was that the result ot an operation was much better if the post-operative anaesthetic was used when the patient was under the general anaesthetic before the actual operation. “I don’t know how far it will go, but it is a very wonderful discovery,” concluded the doctor.