A WONDERFUL OPERATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1159, 16 October 1913, Page 4

A WONDERFUL OPERATION.

American surgeons are delighted (says a New York correspondent) with the success ot an operation performed recently at the Overlook Hospital, on the summit of New Jersey, which is said to be without an exact parallel in American practice. Charles Walters lost, in an accident, the skin, tissue and muscles of his right arm. New skin and tissue were furnished for the lorn arm from his own abdomen, and the arm now has a firm and healthy envelope under which a new muscle may grow. The abdomen has also healed, and is in fine condition, with every prospect of becoming as good as

ever. The surgeon in charge of the hospital made an aperture in the abdominal wall and enclosed the foreaim within it, binding it firmly, so that the tissue as well as the skin might become attached to the wounded arm. By the time the adhesion was assured the edges of the abdominal wound had partially knitted together again.

The removal of the arm carried with it a covering of skin within the tissue to a depth ot half an inch, all around the contribution of the abdomen to the bereft forearm. Then by the plastic treatment usual in skin and tissue displacement, the surgeon proceeded to seal both arm and abdomen. When Walters entered the hospital a month ago his case looked desperate. His arm had been caught in the cogs of a press, and before he could realise it the arm had torn away from it all the flesh from the elbow to the wrist. It then seemed as if the arm could not be saved, but, rather than suffer amputation, Wallers said he would submit to any experiment, however novel or dangerous. It was the necessity for transplanting skin and so large a quantity of human tissue which made Walters’ case unique. From the time that the forearm was lashed within the abdominal pocket it remained perforce immovable. Wallers had to lie with his arm thus encased more than a fortnight. Kveu an involuntary twitching by him for that period would have imperilled the success of the operation. He had to steel his will to resist the instinctive impulse to relieve his arm by shilling its position. Within two weeks Walters will be able to resume work. It was only bis wonderful pluck and perj severance which made so critical an operation possible.