NEW PAINLESS SURGERY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1715, 5 January 1920, Page 7

NEW PAINLESS SURGERY.

For "many years—in fact, ever since anaesthetics wore brought into; generql use—one of the aims of surgical scientists has been the discovery of some method of operating painlessly without rendering the patient unconscious by inhalations of ether or chloroform. According to the Sunday Times this disideratimi is now an accomplished fact, a system based on the use of phenol having been suchessfully employed by the surgeons at the chief military hospitals .in Malta for some thousands ot operations, among which were over 300 on the lungs, performed by Professor Bruschi, of Como. The proposed line of incision is marked with phenol (carbolic acid) by'dipping a sterilised scalpel into this liquid, and using the back of the point of the scalpel as a marker. After the lapse of a few seconds, the scalpel is again dipped- into the phenol, and the tissuos are cut with a slow and gentle up-and-down movement similar to that used in sawing. What happens is that a film of phenol is formed on the blade when it is ...immersed, and this anaesthetises the tissues as they are cut. Frequent dippings are necessary to maintain the film, which is rubbed off by contact with the tissues or washed an ay by blood.