THE NEWEST SURGICAL DISCOVERY.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 136, 13 April 1901, Page 1

THE NEWEST SURGICAL DISCOVERY.

“ The latest surgbal discovery enables she painless performance of critical operations upon a conscious subject.” San Francisco Chronicle, October, 1900,

Within the last few months a most interesting discovery has been made—one that is destined in all probability to revolutionise surgery, at lease that part which relates to anaesthesia. A patient had a leg amputated at the thigh painlessly, without taking either chloroform or ether, and he was conscious throughout, and actually assisted tho surgeon to remove the diseased limb. Just before the operation a few drops of weak solution of cocaine had been inj- cted into the spinal canal. This discovery of a method of producing aumithesia without loss of consciousues is a distinct advance in science, and one which will bo hailed with delight by a growing class of sufferers who dread the anaesthetic and its attendant dangers more thin they do the operation itself. The patient is cleansed and prepared in the ustal way. When brought into the operating room he is placed in an upright position, sitting on the edge of the operating table, while the back is based over the fourth lumbar vertebra, Tho area of skin covering this region is rendered insensible to pain by means of chloride of ethyl, and a hollow, slender n* edln is passed into the spinal canal. Through this a sterilised solution o‘ coca ne is injected, the patient leans iog well forward to spread the vertebral as far apart as possible. The nerve roots are so affected by this anaesthetic that any opera l ion upon the lower half of the trunk or the lower limbs may be performed painlessly. Already operations upon the liver, intestines, and legs have been done successfully, the influence of the drug lasting considerably over an hour. ‘ The first two oases operated upon under spinal cocainiaation consisted of the removal of a vein of the leg and skin grafting, io both of which the pain Without anesthesia would be practically unendurable. This month five more were added to the list, which number included operations"upon several of the internal organs. In all of these cases pain sensation returned to the anaesthe, tised parts within two hours, and th a pulse and respiration were by that time at their normal state. The only untoward symptoms thus far noticed is a moderate degree of nausea, with possible vomit.ng after * the completion of the operation. Whether this is due to tlii < fleet upon the system of the cocaine injected, or of the unusual sight of witnessing an operation upon oneself h«s not yet been determined. Thus far surgeons have not dared to make cocaine injections into the upj ej? part of the spinal canal, lest the result might prove disastrous. This is probably only a matter of type. When it can be done with safety,- the entire b >dy will b open to surgical manipula tiim wi<hout the unpleasant Byrap on? and the lo » of consciousness incident chloroform ami other inhilati ns.—

Francis B* Williams, M.D., in the Herald of Health.