MISTAKES OF SURGEONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2528, 11 January 1923, Page 3

MISTAKES OF SURGEONS.

A BOOK OF CONFESSIONS,

SOME AMAZING EXAMPLES

A celebrated surgeon once removed a man’s sound leg, and discovering the mistake wished to amputate the other, which was 1 badly injured, hut the patient objected, and finally left the hospital with the remaining leg healed. =>Th : is is one of !he most amazing mistakes, at leas! to the mind of the lay reader, in a number related by Dr. Harold Burrows in a hook called “Mistakes and Accidents of Surgery.” The title completely explains the nature of the contents. Dr. Burrows explains that the mistakes related are “the other fellow’s” but the book results in a sorrowful contemplation of many that he himself committed. •Relating to the story of the leg lie cheerily adds: —“T#ie same mistake will probably he made again.” He explains that even more common is the case of the removal of the wrong finger unless a surgeon keeps himself wide awake.

Naturally the operating theatre is the scene of disturbing events, and apparently it is not uncommon to leaA T e swabs and Avads of cotton wool or a bandage in a patient’s body. The doctor relates that he once discovered a swab inside a patient; and the latter continuing ill he made another exploration, discovering a second swab. The X-ray in another case disclosed two rubber tubes in a patient’s chest. Other mistakes mentioned are squirting neat chloroform in hulk into a patient’s mouth, the administration for half an hour of pure oxygen instead of nitrous oxide gas, the diagnosing of head injuries as drunkenness, and the gassing into unconsciousness' of -Hie operator anaesthetist by the decomposition of the products of chloroform in contact with a gas stove. Tn the last-men-tioned case the nurse saved the situation by holding the patient, a child, outside the window. Twenty-six . different ■ diseases have been mistaken for appendicitis, and consequently improperly treated. Dr Burrows cites a case where an anaesthetic was administered to a patient, not suffering from appendicitis, hut from a malady which the anaesthetic rendered fatal. Sprains are frequently mistaken for fractures, and the writer declares that the more common the malady, the greater the mistakes, oAving to the fact that little skill is demanded, which induces carelessness. Operations to the tonsils and adnoids are frequently open to the gravest abuses. The Weekly Despatch, which has an exclusive review of the book, says: “It is reassuring to find this readiness to confess which only means that surgeons have found neAv Avays of reducing the natural liability to error.”