HUMAN SKIN £200 PER FOOT.

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9797, 6 May 1924, Page 7

HUMAN SKIN £2OO PER FOOT.

WEALTHY WOMAN’S PRICE

A strange advertisement appeared in a London newspaper recently. A man offered liimseir as willing to undergo any operation where mere was a “sporting outside chance or recovery.' 1 No one seems to know exactly what is the legal aspect ol : the case. If such an offer were accepted, and the man died under the operation it seems possible that the operator might he indicted for manslaughter. It is, however, a well-known fact that both surgeons and patients are sometimes willing to pay largo sums for suitable human subjects for medical experiment. The blind American millionaire, Mr 0. llouss, once advertised lor a man suffering from eye trouble similar to his own who would be willing to undergo a somewhat painful operation which might result in cure, lie finally obtained a subject (Answers records), and retained him for some years at a salary" of £250 a year. /Several operations were performed upon the substitute, but all without the desired effect. So the millionaire at last gave up hope,' and resigned himself to a life of darkness. Live years ago Miss Emma Gallagher, a wealthy young woman, was terribly burned by the oxplosion of a spirit stove. Her chin, neck, and chest wore left almost raw. To conceal the soars tiie doctors performed 23 different operations in skin-graitiug, the skin being taken from 23 different persons. The sums paid for other people’s skin worked out at £2OO per square foot. An advertisement once appeared in a New York paper to the effect that a Western millionaire, who was about to be married, was prepared to pay a thousand pounds for a right ear to be grafted upon bis own head, in place of one which he had lost in a mining accident. An immense number of applications was received, and Dr Nalden, who undertook the operation, selected a suitable candidate. A deed of agreement was drawn up, and the physician agreed to keep the names of both buyer and seller secret. 1 lie operation was duly performed. The upper half of the volunteer’s ear was cut away, together with about four inches of skin lit the hack of the ear, and grafted on the millionaire’s head. The two men had to lie practically motionless until, after 12 days, the flesh had united, and the rest of tffe ear was cut away and grafted.