SPINAL CORD MENDED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 3 October 1907, Page 4

SPINAL CORD MENDED.

WONDERFUL OPERATION PROVES SUCCESSFUL. Alexander Adrehi. who had his spinal cord severed by a bullet about four years ago (says the New York Tribune) will soon be discharged from the City Hospital, oil Blaekwell's Island, entirely well, it was said last month. This ease has attracted the attention of the medical fraternity owing to the remarkable success of the operation, which was performed by the lute Dr. George Ryerson I'owler, in the Brooklyn Hospital, on May 0, 1003. The ends of the severed cord were drawn together. Dr. Fowler died a year ago, and shortly after bis death the patient was removed to the City Hospital. Since that time he has been under the treatment of Dr. Louis Casamajor. Adrehi was shot in the back during a street light in Brooklyn. When he was taken to the hospital the lower part of his body was completely paralysed. The bullet passed between the tenth and eleventh vertebrae. They were both badly shattered. In an article in "The Annals of Surgery on the operation, Dr. Fowler said: "An incision was made six inches long over the spines of the vertabrae,directly over the eleventh vertabrae. The leminae of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth vertebrae were removed by a chisel. The bullet was found lying transversely between the severed ends of the cord, concealed from view by a large blood elot. "A very narrow, ragged and contused strip of membrane, scarcely more than an eighth of an inch in width, remained intact. The blood clot was carefully sponged away and the bullet removed. The ends of the cord were then sutured with three fine chroinicized catgut sutures, the membrane being included in the sutures. "The membrane was further secured with a number of sutures of fine catgut and a drain consisting of a half dozen strips of oil silk protective introduced. The skin incision was sewed with silkworm gut." Less than a month after the operation the patient was able to move his toes, and the following .November be was able to sit up. Electricity and massage treatment was then used. After a while Adrehi was rigged up in a cage chair, something like that used by babies when learning to walk. During the winter of 11105 he liegan to feel sensations in his body below tile wound. Twenty-six months after the injury lie was able to stand by resting his bauds on a chair. Adrehi " can now walk up and down stairs without the use of crutches or braces. This is said to be the only operation of its kind to have resulted successfully.