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MIRACLES OF SURGERY.

The operation on Lady Crichton is one more proof of the high skill and scientific accuracy in delicate operations that have been reached by modern surgeons, says a London paper. There has seldom .been a stranger operating theatre on land than that of the kitchen in the farmhouse of Woore, Shropshire, where Lady Crichton has lain ever since her hunting accident, though it is on record that dangerous operations have been performed in ships at sea. Such a case occurred in H.M.S. Sappho as she was returning from Monte Video. When about eight days out a young stoker was taken ill with appendicitis, and an immediate operation was necessary to save his life. The weather was so bad that the ship rolled so heavily that it was exceedingly difficult to gej; the doctors from the other vessels of the squadronaboard the Sappho. The operation was successfully performed after three hours' incessant pitching and tossing, and when the ship arrived in England a month later the patient was quite convalescent. Last year Star liner Cedric had to be slowed down to moderate the pitching of the ship while an operation was performed on a Mrs Trebell, and American passenger, by Dr. Pryor and Dr. Halstead.

It was reported at first that Lady Crichton's heart would have lo be moved. Happily this was proved not to be the case, but wonderful as it sounds, the operation is thought to be qufte possible. A few months ago a Leeds butcher named Green-/ wood was accidentally stabbed in the heart by a friend. At the infirmary it was decided that the only way to save the man's life was to stitch the wound in the heart. The , heart was laid bare and three stitches I were rapidly and ca'retully put in. The operation was concluded witnout mishap. "Up to a very few years ago," ,said a London surgeon, "any wound 'of the heart muscle was considered fatal, and no doubt many people died because surgeons were afraid to operate. Nowadays the heart is. handled and sewn up like any other organ which has been injured. In a recent case a man was brought into a hospital with a large revolver shot wound over the heart. Although apparently at the point of death, the heart was exposed. A bullet found embedded in the thick flesh of the apex was removed, and the wound was stitched up. The man recovered."

It is said that there are men an women now alive who have not tasted food for years. They are only kept alive by science, A esse in point was that of a man named Knight, of Kingstown, in Ireland, who died a few years ago. His palate and throat were injured by an explosion and as a result he was unable to take food. A surgical operation was performed, and a tube inserted in his side. By that means the was kept alive, liquid sustenance being passed into his system. He was never able to leave his bed, but he lived for eleven years at fear his accident.

One of the most interesting and successful in surgical science was that conducted by Dr Declair, of Paris, who made a man a new face. An agricultural labourer named Riquier, while shooting with a friend, was accidentally injured in the face by a charge of buckshot. His wounds were terrible, and for a month he lay between life and death. When he finally recovered he could neither speak nor eat, and had to be fed with liquid nourishment. The man was sent to Dr. Declair, who has obtained renown as a "professor of facial " For two months after the arrival of. his patient the doctor was hard at work. He had to fit the man with new jaws and chin, the apparatus being made of gold, silver, and hard and soft rubber.

A portion of the tongue had also been shot away, and it,..was, of course, impossible to restore the missing part, but Riquier, thanks to the artificial jaws, can now speak fairly well. The lips and a portion of the nose had disappeared entirely, so that*now these members are of painted rubber. The same ia the case with the part of tne chin. The materials cost £4O.

In January of this year a wonder- ♦ ful surgical operation was performed at a hospital in Vienna. By an accident in a factory a clerk, Miss Gabrielle Fritsch, was nearly scalped by some machinery. The doctors declared that it was necessary to transplant some new skjn on to the head of the unfortunate girl, and a philanthropist offeied £2O to. any person who might be disposed to make the sacricfie. No fewer than six hundred people notified their willingness, and the doctors selected for the purpose a poor woman with two children. Three young and pretty girls on hearing of this resolution on j the part of the woman went to the hospital and testified their readiness Ito part with their skin without any payment, the money to go to the applicant originally selected. ; The ' operation lasted three quarters of an hour, and skin was taken from the soles of the feet of the girls and : transferred to the scalp of Miss Fritsch. She recovered soon afterI'wards. No less remarkable was a case of blood transfusion in the Presbyterian Hospital of New York. A young | man of Baltimore, named Hill, offered to sell some of his blood for i the benefit of a patient in the •hospital. The proposal was accepted, and fifteen ounces of fluid was taken from ! his right arm and transfused into the • body of the suffrer. Hill, who said he was "clean broke," willingly accepted £2 for his blood. Ho was told that perhaps in four days he would be able to waik and return home. For more than an hour he lay on the operating table. Then, with an exclamation of disgust at his enforced inctivity. he arose unassisted, and ignoring the protests of the doctors, walked out. The only evidence that he had risked his life for £2 was a bandage wound tightly round the ar.n where the incision had been made.

Nowadays the removal or transference of blood vessels and organs is becoming quite a matter of course among?- medical men. Professor Garre, of Bresiau, in a lecture delivered a£ Stuttgart traced the development of the idea of transplanting. He mentioneud the ca.3e of a child of four suffering frwira

cretinism, which had a portion of its mother's thyroid gland transplanted into its spleen. After nine months the child began to develop intellectually and to walk and talk. The professor narrated a number of successful experiments in transplanting the blood-vessels not only from live animalb, but trom animals that had been dead an hour and a half to other animals. Not long ago at the Academy of Medicine in New York a thirteen-year-old Italian girl named Vincenza Cepola was paraded as a remarkable exampte of surgical skill. While she was playing with a revolver the weapon was discharged and the bullet went through her body, lodging near the spine. The wound was somewhat similar to that from which President McKinley died. Her liver was removed, sewed up, and replaced. Later on the doctors removed part of her spine, even sewing up the spinal cord where the bullet had frayedjt—a wound which is usually fatal. In three months the child was as well as ever. It has become a possibility that a time may come when legs and arms will be grafted on human beings. Experiments made an animals were described by Dr Alexis Carrell, of New York, at a meeting of the British Medical Association. Limbs uf rats and guinea pigs had been cut off and put on again, the animals doi i, x well afterwards.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19090607.2.5

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3208, 7 June 1909, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,307

MIRACLES OF SURGERY. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3208, 7 June 1909, Page 3

MIRACLES OF SURGERY. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3208, 7 June 1909, Page 3

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