BAGKBLOCKS OPERATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 72, 24 March 1923, Page 17

BAGKBLOCKS OPERATION.

A MAKE-SHIFT THEATRE. SURGERY IN THE KITCHEN. (By QUACK.) The doctor has ridden twenty-six miles in t lie saddle, over a road of slippery mud, alternating with semiliquid nmd, drop and sticky. The teleplionc message had said there was "temperature, vomiting, and severe abdominal pain,"' but the modest district nurse had entered no diagnosis. Leaning over the l>ed. still breathing quickly from his final eantev across the paddock?, the doctor examines his patient, livrf. with prone extended hand and softly moving lingers, then with a bent rigid finger drumming hammer-like, but very gently, on the left hand, lying flat upon tlu abdomen. The nurse glances from the anxious face of the patient, to the serious, thoughtful, intent face of the duet or. ■•Xot the shade of a shadow of a ghost of a doubt, nurse." he says cheer hilly, as he smiles down at his patient, "i wish some of those Harley Street fellows could have twelve months of these ; roads and learn, incidentally, the meaning of the word inconvenience.'' Then, to the patient. ""Had anything to eat this morning-; ' No? Well", that's all to ! the. good. Is there, a room here, with no verandah over the windows': Hsioil.' , "What is the matter , . , ' , asks the patient. "Aγ. appendix with a very bad character," saya the doctor, "so bad that, you cannot all'or.d to retain, it many hours lonper. - ' "Operation?" the patient says a little anxiously, gripping a handkerchief in nervous restless lingers. ".fust a little one," the doctor answers. Then, to the nurse, who has returned "Same old thing, nurse, rebellions appendix. You start in and get a room ready, whilst 1 unpack my saddle bag and turn my horse out,' , and he strides~ofT to the yard. "Xursc! Nurse! Is it all ri"ht- will it be all right, muse?" .says the patient in a tense whisper. "Quite right, my dear, if you'll be good," and nurse goes to interview the only other woman in the house and enlist her help. The kitchen table is moved info the sitting room and placed in the best l>!it close to the window: all but the heaviest articles of furniture are removed half a dozen sheets, wrung out of strong disinfectant, are spread on these and over the floor (there is no time to' dust and scrub and clean the room) : a clean slieet—covering mattress and pillow— is placed on the table, and another ( disinfected) is run through the mangle and put on the rack to dry; a small table (for the anaesthetist) and another covered with a towel previously disinfected, for the instruments. 'Two or three enamel basins, and a larger one under the largest table, complete the would think, to see them s jp p ; n , r j lo " boil tOa ' W , i,St the 'wtrD. are boiling in a large enamel dish on a primus .stove. Presently the instruments are turned out upon the towel-covered table at the foot of the operating tablethe hypodermic syringe and tongue forceps, the chloroform mask and dropbottle are placed upon the small table at the head; a bag of surgical swabs iodine, spare sheet (now with an oval hole cut out near one of its margins) and rubber gloves, are laid ready for use! The nurse assists the doctor to don his gown, and the two carry the patient (now showing the comforting effect of a small dose of morphia) to the table. •'Oh!' , she exclaims, "what have you done to the sitting-ro-jm? However many sheets ?" "There, dear, don't worry about the room. You will be quite comfortable. That's 'better. Keep very quiet, and 20 to sleep as soon as you can, and when you wake you shall count the sheets. Here is another to wrap you in, and don't scold us for being so extravagant with the laundry."' The doctor takes up mask and 'bottle. "Sow, young lady, it's up to yon to be good, and if you just breathe naturally and trust to mc. you will go to sleep as happily as a healthy baby." The room is very still. The sweet, fruit-like odour of the chloroform scents the air: the ticking of the kitchen clock in the distance marks the passing of the minutes. Th e nurse is threading surgical needles, and inserting each one when threaded in a strip of sterile bandage taken from the box <,f dressings and pinned to the towel upon the small table. Very slowly the time passes. Once the- patient coughs, and the mask is immediately removed, and after two or three quiet breaths is again replaced. Xow and again the doctor lifts one of the patient's eyelids and examines the pupil, or gently touches the '• cornea. The nurse adjusts the sheet so ; that the only part of the patient's body (exposed is the operation area, which I glows pinkly through the op. i;!ng cut in I the sheet. j Tn five minutes or so the doctor J silently to the nurse, who takes the ■ mask and bottle. The doctor draws on ! his. rubber gloves, and picking up a needle scratches a delicate line upon the ■ site of the incision he is about to make, j Taking a small knife, he makes the first i cut. then a second. Kach bleeding point I is quickly seized in blunt-nosed forceps. I which fall aside of their own weight and remain awhile in that position. The knife is exchanged for pcirsots. the seis- ! sors again for a lonsrr pair. From time ! to time the wound is dried with a cot- ; ton swab, afterwards dropped into the basin under the table. In perfect silence nurse and doctor attend to their separate tasks. Once the ; doctor looks up sharply as the patient's breathing alters. Then on again with his work. Presently he places something, held in a pair of forceps, upon the tables edge. Then a needle threaded with »iit is taken, and now the doctor seems to concentrate his attention even more closely on his deft and busy fingers. Then more" swabs: forceps are twisted and removed: swabs again: then needles with gut, and needles with coloured gut, and with horsehair, and finally: •■That will do. nurse," he says, and. absently. for he is still working: •Thanks." and, "A hand with the bandage. Thanks." The nurse begins to clear up. Instruments are collected, to be placed in a special solution, washed, and dried. The doctor removes his gloves, feel* the patient'a pulse, gives a final look at the

bandar's, and moves over to the basin to wash, .stietchin- his back and cramped muscles as lie goes. "A loaf ..f broad, the walrus said, is what »c Hinslly need. .I'eppcr anil vinegar beside are very ni'-f Inileml; And then. 1) little district nurse! we will bcslu i" fei"l," misquoted the doctor. As the nurse is nearer twelve -.-tone than eleven, she blushes (she had H waist years ago) and replies: "I must 'have the vinegar, doctor, and you the bread." for the doctor is as lean as hard riding and anxious work can make a nan, and the man keep lit. ■Soon the patient is carried liack to bed. She is allowed to wake as if from a natural sleep—no senseless flicking with tlic wet corner of a towel. (I was rather fond of doing 'that, when I knew no better.) And when she did waken (mind you, I tell you this in absolute conlidencc), she called "Doctor!" and \\hen he came, with his mouth full of bread and butter, she put one rather feeble arm round his neck and kissed him! "Chloroform plays queer tricks sometimes," said the doctor, but when he saw the twinkle in the nutse's eyes he blushed. "I paid him back with that look. 'Little nurse,' indeed!" thought the nurse.