IMPORTANT INVENTION IN SURGERY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 15

IMPORTANT INVENTION IN SURGERY.

♦ An invention has been perfected which it is believed will reduce greatly the danger of death from blood-poisoning as the result of operations on the body with surgical instruments. The invention is a process for tempering to the hardness of steel the more ductile metals such as gold, silver, and copper. For centuries this process has been considered ono of the lost arts. Dr. J. F. Vaughn, of Los Angeles, has successfully manufactured a large number of gala-bladcdf scalpels, probes, hypodermic and suture needles, and other surgical instruments, which are replacing similar articles of steel. The ductile metals are those which are dense and flexible. The sharp edge ol a. .gold, .blade, is almost perfectly smooth ; that of steel, no matter how fine the edge, is rough and saw-like. Because it is porous, the steel blade has never made a perfect surgical instrument. In the motal may be hidden the infinitesimal germs of a virulent disease ; or there may bo a rust-spot, so tiny that it could not be discerned by tho surgeon, which may be sufficient to poison the tissues in which tho knife makes a wound, resulting in bloodpoisoning and death. In gold, which 'is deme, this danger does not exist ; nor, of course, does gold rust. Besides, the gold blade- divides evenly the flesh or tissue which it cuts, vhereas ■ tho steel blade really- saws or tears its way through. Even when there is ,no infection, the wound made with a steel instrument -does not heal ao readily as that made with gold. Another .feature of the gold blade is that the wound which it makes leaves no scar. This is especially important in facial operations. <It 13 very fro* quently the case that upon tho prompt healing of a wound made in a dangerous surgical operation hangs the fato of tne patient. A sore, slowly-healing wound may exhaust the faint vitality of the afflicted one and' cause death. Within the papt year, in the hospitals of Los Angeles, according to Dr. Vaughn, three fatalities were dircctJy traceable to infection from steel instruments used in surgical operations. The vast and vital importance- of the invention is apparent.