A MIRACLE OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1918, Page 3

A MIRACLE OF THE WAR.

HOW A LAYMAN CONQUERED PAIN. KTOiiY Hi' A WOXUHIUTL A-NAES'l'llJiTi'.. "How are you going to anaesthetise u wound twice me size 01 beoisieak liy injection? What the wounded soldiers in hurope want is something you can slosh 011 by tin* bucketful.' J Hat was. tne protest voiced by liordor. Kdwar.,s, "Tlie Man Who Conquered I'a.ii," ic» weeks alter the world war broke out How hu found the solution, how he spent nearly two year-: before liuropcan ,iottoi.s or (jovernuients wouiu listen to him, liow lie has revolutionised the. treatment oi buttle wounds, is vividly told by Edgar Ansel Mowrer in Collier h. Kuwurds was talking with his luedieal friends about allaying pain through some sort of local ainicstiietjc—'';>omi i thiiig you can- spray oil a raw surface,': he explained, just the opposite of the usual method oi obtaining anaesthesia by injection. Ilis trienda shrugged their shoulders.

Hut Edwards, a. former engineer and half accidental experimenter in medicine and pain allaying methods, already, after eighteen months study the inventor of a. satisfactory solution to be used by injection, went back to hits work. I.ater on he discovered a way in which his new solution could be modified sr. as to fit it for application to external wounds. However, though hj: fell thai: his theories were correct, he wanted actual proof of what he believed. He inquired at the bi;~ Xew York hospitals, and finally found an old woman with leg ulcers, and persuaded the reluctant doctor in charge to try his solution. When he next saw the doctor, the man was no longer sceptical. "Edwards," hj" -aid. "leg llcers are a scandal to the profession. We have never been nb!e to do anything with tlicni. But 1 have treated successfully twenty-five eases ivjth your solution. The patients do at all. and get, well in no time." it was enough He had only one course before him. lie hurriedly named his solution •'Nikalgin''—''victory over pain"—choosing Oreck as a concession to the profession.

Then It. made tin as much concentrated solution as lie could carry, and landed in England in November, ]!)]-!. "The reception Edwards received might have l>een foreseen bv any one not so new as ho to the healing profession," says the writer. "In a word, he was ignored. A wall of indifference—Wand, cruel, unbelievable, when so many thousands of men were crying aloud in agony for want of pain allaying anaesthesis—rose before him everywhere lie went. It was the same in France as in Kngland, where everything was against him. Imt ehiellv two facts: he was not a doctor and he was nn American. Patent medicine faker!' was the bast of the epithet* applied. He stayed a week in London without getting to demonstrate (he value of his solution. Anil, indeed, during the eighteen succeeding months he remained for many a surgeon the nikalgin fellow, that mad American engineer.' Finally he secured r. letter from the sur-geon-general and crossed the Channel to France. The battle of the Yser was on, mid train after train of British wounded wa; returning from Yprcs. lint, that made no difference to the surgeons, who turned him out of Abbeville and piter on' of Boulogne. December found him in Paris, alone and ignorant of tin city, the French language and what he had better do. w A CHANCE TO PROVE IT. Chance enabled him to «iv a demonstration of his solution at the large Hospital Boufl'on, before some thirty surgeons, "one of whom was ft very great surgeon, indeed "When Edwards entered the operating room and found his august spectators waiting for him he suddenly remembered with horror that leg ulcers were not war wounds and that lie had really never tested his solution at all. But he turned his attention to the ease. A soldier's hip and thigh had been scooped out by an exploding shell. The nurses bared the enormous wound. The American rapidly soaked a great piece of cotton with nikalgin and applied it to the raw (lesh. A kindly old surgeon drew the patient's to another matter. After a few minutes the engineer removed the cotton." "Us anaesthesia complete!' the very great surgeon asked. " 'I believe so.' "In a flash the Frenchman had jabbed a bit of glass tubing into the very heart of the wound, probing vigorously into the live flesh. The doctors gasped. Kdwards went, white, then miiek'ly Hushed with pleasure, for the patient had not moved a muscle, tranquilly going on with the story of how he had eome by his wound. He felt nothing at all! The very great surgeon, visibly disturbed, tried another ease. The result was absolutely conclusive. Anaesthesia through nikalgin was established. The very great surgeon withdrew hastily, muttering 'Extraordinary, extraordinary!' with great rapidity!" SUCCESS AT VERDUN. it is just as Veil -lot to count, the angering that might have been saved between December 11. 1914, and the summer of 11)16, when General Nivolle, then commanding' the Second French .Army, invited Edwards to visit the Verdun front and demonstrate his solution. For in all that time Edwards, almost penniless •nd dependent upon gifts from Americans for his supplies, tried in every way ■•« tiring his discovery to the attention of , medical corps of France and England. Verdun he "revolutionised wound • ivs>ing for the surgeons of the Second * ,e rftfHthed the building late one eveni -After ..lioner he said to tlie staff: j >■ .iiurritvr bring all your vorst cases •:> u riui' wounds into the operating V ! 11 treat them each once, and j* •' ' "«t von can take the pressure the solution and do it yourself.' WJ • w»» brought together a more ter-|rn-.e coi option of maimed, charred, and >u>autfMNl living bodies than the one in ;.'i" operating room the following morning. The surgeons, used to the worst, grew pale at the sight of some of the eases. Edwards, the layman, had never magined anything so awful. Twice during the morning's work he nearly fainted; hut he did not faint. After a few comparatively simple eases the attendants wheeled forward a closely swathed lia'nr'.- half iipright in a chair.' It was a victim of li<|uid (ire. The head was almost entirely enveloped in gauze. The doctors had not dared to put the pitient to bed when he arrived the day before. When brought, into the operating room he sat propped up on cushions, milivirms t.o everything hut sensation, heedless of e\crything hut the pain "'Now, I ask vou. Mr. Edwards,' the chief surgeon said slowly. ">vhii e.:n you do wiiii a case like that? Tlmt breast must he dressed or (lie man will die of poisoning. Yet, with vlit nerves expos-

oil as I lip v a iv. if 1 attempt to remove that apron of !?an:".' lu> will di" of win. Can vrii! d" anything fur hiin'r "'lll irv,' lidwan'.- answered. alreadv <i<.'\ihtf'ii! df the in>fc.

' I Tilth 1 lie heeau to -urav tlie ;'r.'St, and ior I'iiPv ten unnulf i moistened I lie gauze, imH i' <1 i-ij-.prv! solution. Then, while a iu'Vr-f i-i'.Uv lif'nl the lisnila?/"! chin instil i!c wer<- fixe.l on f!:e .viliii'j. tlii: eiiirf at tin: lie.'!: to ; v .v! down tin: L;>i'.!/.e. while Kdward's never cased phn in;: a stream oi anaesthetic on io the raw Hc.-h. "An inch! A MIRACLE! " " - '"('lie surgeons. perpiring. looked quirk, y at the patient. He h,,,] ;n(iv . ed. Allotiiit'h! The >iir,ucnn. emboldened and fearful le<t' Hie momentary e'lVi-t should pas;. stripped away the gauze from the burn in a single 'movement. And those strange, frightened eves never leli the ceiling. did not even realise that his wounds were being treated. Ho felt nothing. There was no sound in the operating room while the drossing proceeded. When it was over the attendant; slowly wheeled rr.vav the rebandaged figure—back to life from the very vale of agony that slopes down into death. Kor if his wounds could be dressed and the pain obviated he was saved.

"There is no need to describe the enthusiasm of the surgeons, manv of whom bad had their nights turned to hell through brooding on the suffering they daily inflicted. Another soldier, with a suppurating hole through his thigh <i foot long which necessitated the passing of strips of gauze through the funnel, usually suffered agonies. This day he announced that he would rather oi.' than undergo dressing another time. " 1 promise you it will not hurt a bit.' lid wards said earnestly. ''The man looked up .and in his eyes the American read the infinite hostility of the long-deceived sufferer a°ainst those hale and hearty persons who take the name of others' pain in vain. Vet such was the cfleet of nikalgin that he permitted the surgeons to cleanse the wound by sawing fresh gauze back and forth through it. and this without a quiver. Until he sa-w the fresh bandages in position, he refused to believe that the old ones had been removed. ''Leaving with the doctors of the Verdun front all the solution he had on hand, Edwards returned to England. It was at Manchester a month latc*r that- a letter reached him from the chief surgeon of the Second Army, asking him to" return. with more solution, at once. The letter continued in what to Edwards seemed immortal words: 'Wounds lmve healed normally without suppuration and with a total absence of all secretion.' '"Once more he met the surgeon inspector.

'"How much solution have you brousht" asked the latter. " 'Twenty-five gallons—about a hundred litres.'

"The Frenchman tossed his hands in dismay. ! A hundred litres will last one hospital only ten days. What shall we do when they are gone? What about the other hospitals? We must have enough nikalgin to keep the entire army Hooded. AVhatever is useful in one military hospital is needed in all of them " "By December, 191(1, his solution was 'n use on the Somme front is well. Nikalgin won admission into the great military hospital of Paris. Val de n'rnce, where an eminent Russian surgeon, a woman, took it up eagerly, Ttalv's medical men, seemingly less' sluggish than those of France and England,"are adopting it to-day.

"Every day testimonies reach him from the most varied sources. Most of them were written hy surgeons, some of whom are world famous. Some of the letter? are from soldiers, and their'letters are like tangible prayers, seeming withal to cry out at all'who blocked Gordon Edwards."