SURGEON’S SKILL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 96, 6 April 1934, Page 13

SURGEON’S SKILL

Child Swallows Watch REMOVAL FROM LUNG From time to time the doctors o£ the great Sydney hospitals are called upon to perform some difficult teat.’ in order to save life, and they succeed more often than they fail. Tais is due to the skill of the present-day surgeon, who has the assistauce of many re markable devices. Recently, witg the uid of a bronchoscope and a pair ol forceps doctors at the Sydney Hospital were able to remove from a child’s lung a toy watch which she had swallowed while at play. For a while the child was very ill, but she has now recovered and has returned to her home at Bombala, a country town many miles from Sydney. The, patient was Gloria Bovey, aged seven. The doctors were told that last Wednesday week Gloria had placed tlio watch in her mouth and had then taken a deep breath. Thc watch immediately disappeared. The local doctor realised the seriousness of the position, and advised that the child should be rushed to Sydney to receive the skilled attention she required if her life was to be saved. The journey by motor car and train was trying for both the child ami her mother. During the whole time the child appeared an though she were choking, and at times it was thought that she would die before she reached the city.

At the hospital it was decided that an immediate operation was necessary. The child was taken to the theatre. A bronchoscope—a long surgical instrument with an electric globe on the end, to enable the surgeon to see—was inserted in her throat and into tho lung, where the watch was seen. A delicate operation followed, a doclor having to manipulate a pair of forceps down the throat ami into the lung without causing any injury. He eventually secured the watch, and very slowly he withdrew it. There was a sigh of relief among the doctors when the watch reappeared. Burgeons are frequently called upon to remove large foreign bodies from the lung ami the stomach. Mostly pins and coins are swallowed, and even false teeth find their way down the throat. One of the most unusual of these cases was treated by one of the doctors at the Sydney Hospital, who specialises in this particular work. A young woman was admitted after having swallowed a table fork. An internal operation was necessary and after the fork had been recovered, and the patient convalescing, she swallowed a hair clasp. Another operation was performed.