PAIN STOPPED BY SILK.

Hastings Standard, Volume XII, Issue 5846, 9 May 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

PAIN STOPPED BY SILK.

LONDON SURGEON'S NEW METHOD.

Ono of the great problems which have Hitherto defied surgical skill has recently been solved by a well-known London surgeon. The new operation, doscribed by the originator, Professor W. Sampson" Handley, of the Royal College of Suregons in England," in this week's "Lancet," - is a method for supplying channels for lymph circulation in limbs whose lymphatic vessels have teen destroyed by cancer growth. —.** T|, e lymphatic circulation of the body is carried on bv a vast number of minute vessels like veins, which collect lymph from all parts of th" body. Any stoppage of these vessels which prevent'; the free circulation of the lymph will result in the parts below the stoppage becoming practically water-logged, the condition resembling that which follows the obstruction of veins. According to Dr Handley, in about one case of six after the operation for breast cancer, the channels through which the lymph supply of the arm is returned to the body are destroyed, f !i« condition resulting being known as "brawny arm." Extremely painful, th" swollen and practically paralysed limb adds largely to the other terrible sufferings of the cancer victim. ' Dr. Handley's operation consists of implanting silken threads in the tissues under the skin of the swollen These threads extend from the wrist to the arm-pit. Dr Handley, in using threads, relies on the capiilarv action of the silk fibres to direct the lymoh up the arm until it meets the healthv tissues about the armpit, where the uninjured lymph vessels can carry it away. Experience in the Cancer Research Laboratories of the Middlesex Hospital lias_ shown Dr Handley that silk thread so imbedded will remain praeticallv intact and unabsorbed, retaining its capillary power of drawing back to the circulation through its fibres the lvmph which bad collected in the limb and had, since the destruction of its vessels, no other means of return. This capillary force or power is a little understood natural phenomenon which will cause any fii;id to flow up any minute tube the lower end of whicu is immersed in the fluid. In the case of the silk threads the minute spaa - between the silk fibres form sonara:-' capillary tubes, along which th" lymp:i gradually mounts until the upper end* of the threads are reached. In a recent case in which Dr Handlestried his operation the patient had had a cancer removed five years &go, an 1 during the past three years the swelling, harness, paralysis", and rain >n the arm had been increasing. Four weeks after the introduction of the threads the pain had entirely disappeared, the paralysis had lnrgelv pr-.ssed off, and the arm had returner! pra-ti:-ally to its normal size.