MARVELS OF MODERN SURGERY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 221, 27 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

MARVELS OF MODERN SURGERY.

SCIENCE AM) WOUNDED HEROES AT THE MILITARY HOSPITALS. A Special Correspondent of the "Daily Graphic," who uas just completed a tour of British Military Hospitals, here records some of the interesting things he has seen and heard. During the present week I have been privileged, through the courtesy of Sir Alfred Keogh, Director-General of the Army Medical Service, to visit some cf the larger hospitals, and also the Royal Army Medical College at Millbank, with may be termed the brain of tue organisation. Necessarily little is known of the subject by outsiders. Military hospitals arc ousy places, and there is no room in them for mere idlers. A visit to any one of them, .t may be said at once, is eminently calculated to impress on one the marvellous progress that has 'been made in reccit times in surgical scence*. In all the hospitals what the medical staff set above all is conservative snr gery—that is to say, the saving of limbs in order that patients my remain useful members of the community. Thus, at the Herbert hospital at Shooter's Hill there have been s- ; nce> the wai from three to toui thousand operations, and Colonel Simpson, the officer in charge, declared that he did not believe there had been in all more than twenty five primary amputations. A few illustrations among manv which might be given will make h clear. Not long ago a wounded Guardsman was brought into the Queen Alexandra Hospital, at Millbank, sufferin-; from a shrapnel wound. Examination tinder the N-rays showed that a pieeo of metal as large as a Halfpenny anfl much thicker had entered the bresst and lodged in the region of the heart. It was, in fact, actually toi-ch'ing tln> heart and impeding its action. An operation was decided on, an 1 the surgeon thrust his Tiand righ* into an opening and pulled oift the piece of metal, which is preserved as i souvenir There was a danger tnat during anaesthesia the lungs might collapse, and therefore ether was pumped into them to keep them distended. That gallant Guardsman is now out and about, and it is declared that he will not feel the slightest ill-effects from his strange cxperien.ee. SOME REMARKABLE CASES.

In this hospital there is at the present moment » Serbian officer who was wounded in hi* own country and wjs brought to Knjrlnnd tor treatment, 't was a case of severe injury to the jaw. Lieutenant Sir Francis F; rmor removed a peco of hone about two nnd a half inches from the tibia of thf patient and, having carefully prepared a bed in which to place it, fixed it ,ri the jaw. Already the patient s lee; has healed up wonderfully well. The I ealing of the jaw* i.i a rather fonder process but be can now eat much !>ettc-r than he could, and »i is hoped that a perfect cure will re«ult. In a very number of reiMs a brok'-ri bon«- ii carefully joncd by means of a steel splint, whi< h i* WTCwed to the bone just as a carjienter M;rews two piece* ot wood together. 'Hie steel platr, which is Koinetimo about an ini'i wide and four or live inefu * long, ren.auis permanently in too wound, U>with the steel wr<i»>, and tb s ih,. patient suffers no neonvi uience u

M,i>,.-.,ii< lie. Ji is tli.< <.|«ni«n of Colon. I I'ifi -r. win) Ij;i>! performed many 1,1 t)k-;• oj)ii.ii:o:ii>, il.at in time thu steel won '1 be i™p, Ji 1 - it WW, disjsijwt.(l in id ->>t«'iii ;iii"l disappear altogether. A- iron is oil" oi the constitucllto oi the blood, tile spllllt doet, 110'ioiiotitntc a source of. danger. iSomo tint:ili!<> cim's oi tii.' km:] have also ocnirred ai the Herbert Hospital :.t Shooters Hill. Hcic. :i!m), case-, of injur", to nerves i 'iu*iiig jj;ir :i l\ -:- haw been si ocessfull.V treated by bringing the ends of iho nerves together and joining them. In one • iy. ;it the Hammersmith General Hospital. Wormwood Si nibs, six useless irnioi 1,-v were taken from en*? side of tho trK: oi ;i patient and transferred to the other, with the consequence that i!i»' man. who was prcvously paralysed in tlie h:ind. can now raise his wrist and t'\t.lid his lingers.

In one ol the military hospitals a little -a liil.' ago there was a patient who had pan ol his arm shot away, so that the nerve was missing over four inches. The surgeon who had the case In hard made im.uiri' s at nth r hospitals « London, and he found that ai one ortheni a man \\:is to have a le<r amputated at half-pist three the same aftern,.,in. Ode-s were issued so that the mom. in the limh was severed it was put in a saline hath an dtaken to the military hospital in :i taxi-'ah. 'Hie parent it the niihtarv hospital heinic ruder anaesthesia, his Uamnged ann unopened ind a pie. Eof hi*lllhv nerve ii .„.. t'•.. "'.her natient's nWutnted lee was substituted tor the injured por-

lion. The operation v.as eonplot?lr siieeessfid. the pitient recovering the n e i'i his hand, which had been para-