SURGERY EXTRACRUINARY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXII, Issue 24, 29 January 1898, Page 4

SURGERY EXTRACRUINARY.

SOME ASTONISHING OPERATIONS. The .wonderful developments of Burgery? during the past half century, in comparison with which it has often been remarked medicine has stood still, have seldom been more strikingly illustrated than in thefollowingarticle from the"Glasgow Mail,"dealing with the achievements of a surgeon of that city:-' What other men hardly dared to dream of Dr Macewan has done; what his profession has pronounced impossible he has performed. One of the first published of his sensational performances — the creation from fragments of the bones of the six legs of the threo other men of a new bony shaft for the arm of a boy who had lost his humerus, or arm bone, from disease— is recorded- at page 1,470 of the first volume for 1881 of the reports of tbe French Academy of Sciences. A young boy having been brought to him, 4f inches of the bone of whose arm was dead, Dr Macewan, having satisfied himself of the exact extent and nature of the damage by an explorator** operation, conceived the Edisoniah idea of making him a new humerus out of waste bone wedges cut from the shins of some of his bow-legged patients. Having one of these and operated on his legs, he cut the excised wedges of bone into . fragments, took out the diseased part of the boy's humerus —two thirds of the whole— and sowed a fnrrow, which from ita anatomical relations ho judged to be that which the humerus shaft should have occupied— fur disease had matted and altered the structures so much that it was difficult to be confident— with the living fragment* of the other patient's shin bones. This oporation ho repeated as opportunity offered, three times in all, aud in each successive operation he saw that the fragments of tho bones formerly planted were living and growing, and that everything was going on as he had hoped. The result was that he turned out a boy with a new arm-bone, grown from the fragmonts of aix different 'shin bones belonging to other people, almost as serviceable as his healthy arm, and shorter than it by onlv half an inch ; and 10 yeara atterwardfl he exhibited the boy, whose artificial arm had meantime grown in length and thickness with it's fellow. A still greater surgical triumph, however, of Dr Macewan 's is to be found in tho operations which he has invented for the relief of tjie pressure of tie spinal cord arising from injury or disease of the bones of the spinal column. When he first conceived them. any interference of the kind •vas regarded by the profession as absolutely unjustifiable -—at all events, in cases resulting from disease. In one case of a girl brought to Dr Macewan in 1884, the symptoms were of such an aggravated nature, and indicated such extensive organic changes in the Bpinal cord itself, that he considered the operation almost hopeless, and it waß only on the urgont and touching appeal of the girl herself that the operation was undertaken. ,The girl was parplytio, her legs livid and senseless, and her ■whole state so wretched as to make life to her a burden. When operating Dr Macewan found the. spinal cord so altered by the pressure to which it had been subjected as to lead him to think that there, was no hope of her recovery from her paralytic state. He had removed the pressure, however, and ten hours after the operation the limbs lost the lividity, felt warm to the touch, and the patient said she experienced ?'.&, sensation as if sho were dreaming that her legs were on and; that hot walei were running through thorn." In a few days more some of her most painful and troublesome symptoms ' had disappeared ; sensation return d t to her limbs. Some months elapsed ( before she could use them ; but eight ( months subsequent lo the operation she walked a quarter of a mile, and \ stated she cou-d perform many light ! duties in the house, besides attend- » ing to herself, shoe when Bho had j been very well and able to enioy \ life. J ' l On one occasion a poor woman « was brought to tbe infirmary in a itate of pnlselesfl oollapse, suffering from t.Lo results of a perforation of

att intestine whioh which had alliv.od the intestinal contents to nt ply themsoivt'B in tho abdominal ca ity. It looked as if the woman e< ::1J not survive half anhuu^and uo other surgeon would havo dared to rnk epc-rat'.ve interference. lut a gl 1 wi.o accomj.ia-iied the pitieiit. pi .ideil t.lmt her father was doad, au I, pi-ifully weeping at tho prospect that lay before her and hor brothers if their mother, too, were t-A-en from her, she imp'.ored Dr Al.wewan to save her. There was n<> time to spare ; ho pur. on hi? ccasidorinq cap, aud fo.- a few mo m nt3 was nbioiboiinan tifjitof intense though'. Then his nrnul v, s made up Placing „the woman on the operating table without chloroform (hor collap.-e was too profound to stand tha) he boldly out through the abdominal walls, w.i3hed ont Iho !.btlominal cavity by moans of a hose with warm water, under the influence of which the [.ulse reappeared. He socn fouud the perloratod bowel, and, performing a temporary oporation lo secure it in a safe position, he placed the patient in bed. There for several days and nights he tended her as though she had been his dearest friend, watching for his opportunity, d.iug e.erjthitig that hnmiU skill euuhl suggest to bring back ber gt-cngth and oi.ablc her to endure tho opera 1 ion which he had planned for her cure. Then when the critical moment arrived he atiackol the case once more, and in the coarse of a few weeks that woman was restored safo and sound to her family.