SURGICAL MIRACLE

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1939, Page 11

SURGICAL MIRACLE

CAESAREAN OPERATION ON BABY A modeim miracle in the form of a caesarean operation upon a baby girl, now aged six weeks, has been revealed. The baby, at the age of two weeks, was taken to the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital by her mother, who desired advice respecting the child’s greatly enlarged abodmen. An X-ray examination revealed the cause to be another child in a five months’ stage of development. After a staff conference, and with the parents’ consent, the operation was successfully performed, and what is thought to be a new world record in sgrgery was set up. The semideveloped baby, which weighed 21b, was removed, but was incapable of a separate existence. The first baby has now been discharged 1 in good health and in a perfectly normal condition.

A search of British medical records revealed only two similar cases, the most recent being in 1814. According to medical authorities who have been consulted by a “Morning Advertiser” representative, there have been a considerable number of traces of embryo found in both external tumours and internally in the /case of children. Any identifiable formation appears, however, to he a rare occurrence.

The obstetric surgeon pointed to frequent cases . of embryo revealed which must have been in existence at the birth, but were not revealed until adult age had been reached—in the case of female children. An official of the Royal College of Surgeons stated that a book, “Curiosities of Medicine,” published in 1897, recorded a dozen child instances of tumours containing traces of embryo, both internal and external. The most recent case in the book was that of an Indian boy, aged 22, who had an external tumour in which there were traces of embryo.