Putting a pin in an elephant’s leg

Press, 26 November 1977, Page 16

Putting a pin in an elephant’s leg

A team of four surgeons, two anaesthetists. two veterinarians and seven nurses recently performed a unique operation in Florida. It was not the technique that was unusual — that of replacing bones by titanium alloy pins — but the patient. a 21-year-old, 3000-kiiogram Asian elephant. called Dixie. Dixie suffered from a complaint said to be common in the e'ephant world: about five years ago she developed

an infection in the cracked pad of her right front foot, which spread to the ankle bones. After a time, the elephant is unable to put any weight on the injured foot and the other front foot is unable to support the full weight. Dr Patrick Barry, a Miami orthopaedic surgeon, led the operation to replace the diseased bones with titanium alloy’ pins, similar to the ones used in human surgery.

Several requirements had to be met before the operation could be done. One of the most demanding was to make a tourniquet large enough and strong enough to stem the loss of blood from the elephant’s leg during the operation. Dr Barry sought the help of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company, which offered a naturalrubber gum stock compound that had been used to line the inside of

industrial tanks. From this, Goodyear researchers made a huge rubber bandage. The gauge was based on estimates that the pressure required to stem the blood flow would at least be three times that needed for a human, and its length was calculated from Dixie’s leg dimensions. Three tourniquets were made up and cured in an autoclave in the research laboratory. Preliminary tests were made on an elephant in

Cleveland Zoo, and it was obvious that the tourniquet would have to be a heavier gauge. The bandage which was eventually used was 18.5 millimetres wide, I.2mm thick, 30 metres long, and weighed 5 kilograms. It took two men to wind it round Dixie’s leg, stretching the bandage to about two and a half times its original length to achieve the necessary pressure. No adhesive was used: the natural rubber stuck to itself.

Wrapping began just above tbe base of the foot, and continued about twothirds of the way up the leg. It was tied off with a number of wraps to build up pressure. The bottom wraps were then cut away to expose the area where the operation' was to take place. The operation itself presented further problems. Elephants are not able to lie on their sides for very long, as this may restrict the rib cage and

lead io lung collapse. Dixie was on her side for almost five hours during the operation, and in that time the 15-strong surgical team could insert only two pins instead of the four they intended. But in every other way the operation went smoothly, and the elephant got up a few minutes after the operation was over. A day after the operation it became evident that two pins could not support the weight of the

elephant. X-rays showed that one pin had slipped and the other had become partly disengaged. Dr Barry decided to put on an external cast as a stopgap measure and to operate again after three weeks. While the cast was put on, Dixie had to be anaesthetised again. But this time she was highly excited, and she suffered a heart attack and died.