DOCTOR OPERATES ON HIMSELF

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 78, 1 April 1912, Page 7

DOCTOR OPERATES ON HIMSELF

ASTONISHING EXPERIMENT. [fbom ooa own cobbesfonihujt.] SAN FRANCISCO, 6th March. What is supposed to be the only instance on record of a surgeon operating upon himself for appendicitis occurred gently in San Francisco. Dr. Bertram F. Alden, chief surgeon at a local hospital, performed this astonishing surgical experiment. It was conducted in the presence of two other surgeons, and the usual number of nurses, and other attendants were in the room. The operation was started and almott finished by Dr. Alden, and the only reason why he allowed the other doctors to finish it was that one of them, Dr. Mardis, threatened to leave the operating room unless Dr. Alden desisted in the intention to do the work himself. The experunenfc was further notable in that it conclusively proved that spinal anaesthesia, which Dr. Alden uses in all operations, does not dull the faculties, while it removes the sense of pain. In speaking of his operation upon, himself, Dr. Alden said: "I could have completed the operation, I am sure. 1 injected the spinal anaesthesia myself, and I made all the preliminary incisions without the slightest difficulty. In fact, I laid bare the folds of flesh until I reached the inflamed organ." I could have finished as I begun, without any aid, but the other doctors- dreaded a slip of the scalpel, and commanded me to stop, threatening to leave me if I persisted in completing the operation. I knew, however, that I could have done the work without any trouble. The spinal anaesthesia rendered the lower nerves of the body insensible to pain, while, as I have always contended, the brain remained clear" and the hand steady. The anaesthesia did not numb me entirely nor did it render me uncertain in my movement*." Dr. Alden, added that it was chiefly to strengthen his arguments in f&voor of this new anaesthesia that he opeiuted upon himself. He feels that the operation was of immense value Ut him, inasmuch ac it gave him a vivid sense of the action. of the tspinal anaesthesia, and it furnished him with valuable knowledge of the sensations undergone by appendieiti-s patients under the knife. ""Incidentally," he says, "it showed that it is not Lniposfeible for a surgeon, withdrawn horn everyone, to save himself by e-ueh an> 6i *iiyP» should it be fieceeeary/'