LIFE RESTORED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 November 1924, Page 15

LIFE RESTORED.

TO A DEAD MAN

AMAZING FEAT BY A LONDON SURGEON.

A man who was dead, his heart having entirely stopped beating, lias been brought back to- life by a daring operation performed by a surgeon at Westminster Hospital. The patient who was thus wonderfully saved is Mr. William George Sidney' Newman, an ex-Service man, 52 years of age, whose home in the Isle of Wight, and the hero'of the operation is Mr. Tudor Edwards, the visiting surgeon at the hospital. Mr. Newman was taken to the hospital for an operation, and while he was being put under the anaesthetic bis heart stopped beating. Mr. Edwards. who Was to have performed the operation, at once took the case in hand. Ordinary methods adopted in such an emergency failed utterly. Mr. Edwards promptly made an incision and. -inserting his. hand, massaged the “dead” man’s heart. After about a minute and a half the heart began a flickering beat. Very soon after it had resumed its normal healthy action, and the patient, though still unconscious, wa-s taken back to the ward.

This is not the first recorded instance of a patient being restored to life by massage of the heart after it has ceased to beat-, but in almost every instance recovery has been only temporary, and the patient has died in a very short time. In one case in which Mr. Tudor Edwards performed the operation, the patient, a woman, completely recovered, but died some time afterwards from an entirely different cause.

To a representative of The Sunday News the surgeon and secretary of the hospital denied all suggestions of “miracle working.”

“What We do is just modern surgery,” said the surgeon. “Perhapsyou would like to see a couple of thumbs I am making.” In the orthopaedic department lay a little boy, perfectly normal, exceot'for one hand, which is. like a foot, at right angles to the forearm —and minus the thumb.

The new thumb was being formed oh tlie rib of the child. A portion of the rib is separated and so treated that-the skm grows round it

This is the first step in. thumb manufacturing The next is when th© hand upon winch the thumb is to be “planted” is brought across and connected with the section of isolated rib. Here it will remain until the rib-section grows on to the thumbless hand. The hand is now jointed to the body at th© nb. The last process will be to cut. tne section of th© rib away and the hand will hav© a thumb. Even a nail may be grafted on from the little toe if necessary In a little room all alone the representative of The Sunday News was shown a little girl with her head swathed in bandages. She lay quite stgl and looked like a wax doll. She had taken a heading plunge out of a window 40 feet above the street and fractured her skull. It. was a 1000 to 1 chance against her living She ha*, been unconscious for two ’week s. But curing that time she has been removed. and over the holes in her head aar© been fitted silver plates. She will pro -ably live and recover completely.