The Lust for Operation.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 161, 12 July 1904, Page 4

The Lust for Operation.

TWO KB.UARKAULE CASES. c * Xu '* Zeul ""» H««s London tonespondent writes : ' is u somewhat remarkable and disqmenng fact uwt in a single <la> k newspapers tbero Kjloul(i £ acton,is ol two tlis-finct cases j,, > nir th ''' , ', t '''," i '-" li ' lst '' i ''''»ts or s .„ , 01 . ~,,,, huVo , )wn m , he bodies of ~l lti ,»t ß dl „.j one,,, ~,w i„ sUui i| le u .ferenc.- 8 «ah to <»e astounding case mentioncti "» '">' »'-M letter. It , lluv hc . ..... been sewn up „„ the conclusion of u successful operation she did not get letter, but, on , hl , contrary, "oifce and worse, m the end dying »>«'>' lour weeks of severe suffering caused, as the autopsy clearly . ,U----inonstrattd, by u fo.ceps u „d sponge holl. being left in her .bodv. The hospital authorities were quite clear (hat this mvolvod , 10 f aull 01 . H „ gienco on the part of the operaitor or his assistant, mid actually referred with pride, to tlie facts baring been elicited by an inquest, ns showing the poorer classes—who else might have become distrustful or hospital methods— thnt their interests were duly cared for by the law. I have not found this view to be at all pre- , valeM. On the contrary, the affair lias excited a general t feeling, of horror and dismay. It was bad enough for nn unhappy woman to be done ■, to death in this horrible, way. But to be told that this wns merely a Casual incident of hospital practice, ' implying no fault or neglect on any- , body's part—unless it were on the ;mrt of the patient who so ungrate- \ fully brought discredit on the system by wickedly dying—is reully al- » nost too tiiuoh for the, general pubic to swallow at a gulp. I have i leard wives pray their husbands to

let them dio i u peace rather than I they should be subjected t.o the lit-' tla eccentricities of surgical perform-1 nuce. Ami who oan wonder at it of- : tcr such revelations ? I In the other case a lady doctor I had ovei-atKl on a s_>i-v n nt maid. ; The operation whs a wry s.'verc. one, iiii'ludin ■■ ih,! actual total removal of several of the woman's " inside j Wi-rl-y" which had become diseased, j ! i mis skilfully done, and the palimt omrlil to have rapidly recover-! id. liui again, she didn'l. She' got worse. Pain was felt in a ! particular region. It, increased, and! w„s attended by.other um'avoura'lile ! r.i ■■■■■ ptoms. A i'r<sh operation was di-nurd necessary. It took place, i end liie unnce of all the. trouble i war; discovered in a sponge which! had been casually left inside when the patient was "sewn up.' 1 The victim brought an action against the lady operator for negligence, 'and the case. is. still proceeding. But again, not only the defendant, but also the assistants and several prominent practitioners in their evidence utterly scouted the absurd idea that the slightest negligence or carelessness was involved in leaving inside a patient's body "foreign substances" of any kind whatever. It came out. that some surgeons were Billy cads and bounders enough to perform operations with rings on their fingers, which said rings not infrequently drop]H'd into the cutopen bodies of hapless patients, and Ki-ve. thus occasionally lost, to the gi'eat annoyance of the rings' owners. In other cases the valuable rings were rescued at the last moment from the relatively worthless—but living—open carcases into which they had casually dropped. In this case the lady surgeon at first blunted the nurse assistant for cnrelessni.'is for leaving in the sponge, but later withdrew that charge and roundly declared that it did not con-

stiluto neglect at all. As for the nurse assistant, she as roundly declared that she counted the sponges before and after the operation, and their nunfrer was precisely the same in each case !

Talking of operations, the Church Hells and Illustrated Church News of May 13th has the following : "It has been our painful duty on more than one occasion, to criticise the want of care and consideration towards patients in some of our metropolitan hospitals, but wc have, seldom, if ever, had reason to call attention to a more serious case than that which has recently been engaging tho attention of the Hammersmith coroner. It appears from the evidence Alice Piercy, aged 28, wife, of a waterman, was admitted to the. West London Hospital on March Bth, suffering from an internal rupture. Aa operation was performed by Mr Stephen Paget. It was stated that, owing to the grave eondidition of the patient, the operation had to lie performed with great rapidity. As many as eight or ten pairs of forceps were used, and a number of sponges. Just before the Wound was stitched up, one of the nurses discovered that a sponge was .missing, and this ivus removed. Mrs l'ien-y grew rapidly worse, so that, on April 15, i( was necessary for a second operation t» be performed, when a pa r of four-inch forceps was found low down in the abdomen, tliero being naturally « serious condition of inflammation in consequence. Two days later Mrs Piercy (lied. ... It is well known that mcmlvers of the medical profession are always ready to uphold one another, and in the case under review Mr Paget was supported by the evidence of Sir Thomas Smith and Sir Victor Horsley. Hut we hardly i think that the public will be reassured by the statement of the former. He said that 'in emergency cases of this kind such things had occurred, and would occur again. The niklominal cavity was like a carpet, 'bag, filled with things, nnd anything lost was hard to find. No one but a surgeon could realise the difficulty.' The jury in the above case evidently took the most lenient view possible, and brought in a verdict of 'Death by misadventure, due to peritonitis, following an operation, which was accelerated by the presence of the forceps,' and they added the following significant rider :—'We consider the system at the hospital is largely at fault, and suipjjest that all instruments should bo numbered and counted before and after each operation.' "