SURGICAL SKILL.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18924, 12 February 1927, Page 11

SURGICAL SKILL.

IN SYDNEY HOSPITAL. SAVES BOY'S LIFE. (FROX OCTR OWX CORRESFOSBBKT.) SYDNEY, January 27. From the large hospitals in Sydney come frequent instances of surgical skill saving the lives of patients, but probably none has been more remarkable than one reported from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital this week. Operating within a hair's breadth of the brain, a surgeon saved the life of a boy by removing a hydatid cist as large as a pigeon's egg from behind the child's left eye. Sydney medical men, especially those specialising in eye work, have been intensely interested in this extraordinary case." A five-year-old boy, Arthur Randle, was brought to the" hospital from a North Coast township with the tissue round his left eye so swollen and inflamed that the eyeball had been forced from the socket and was projecting over an inch beyond the contour of the face. Doctors were mystified uutil, after a scries of operations, the cause of the trouble was located in n hydatid cist at the back of the eye. This was removed and the boy is now making satisfactory progress towards recovery, although he has lost the sight of the eye. The occurrence is one of extreme rarity, and is likely to go'on record in medical annals.

According to the lad's father, the swelling began five or six months ago. An operation was performed in the country, and a quantity of pus was removed from tho tissues about the eye. Only temporary relief was obtained, and as the swelling became worse, tho boy was brought to Sydney for further treatment. At that time tho tissues were so distended that tho eyelid could not close. Tests were made to discover whether a malignant growth at the back of the eye was tho cause, but these gave a negative result. Then followed the extraordinary discovery of the presence of the cist and the still more extraordinary and dclicato operation involving its removal. Otherwise certain death must have overtaken tho boy. In tho long history of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital thero has been no similar case and probably it haß no precedents in this country where hydatids is more plentiful than in nny other country in tho world. In Randlo's caso the hydatids must have passed through both liver and lungs before reaching their queer lodging place behind tho eye.