A FEAT IN SURGERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9452, 24 August 1889, Page 3

A FEAT IN SURGERY.

TO THE EDITi Sir,—ln the columns or your general mail news I notice the above heading, where the details of an operation are mentioned, viz., ".Dr. Gnadeuijo, Professor of Ophthalmic Surgery in the University of Padua, has, the Lancet says, just succeeded in transplanting the corneal from the eye of a barn fowl into the eye of a patient under his care. On the Sth daj r after the operation the transplanted cornea presented a quite pellucid and convex appearance. Such a result has not been recorded in the annals of continental surgery." About nine years ago, being the ophthalmic surgeon to the Christchurch Hospital, I performed a series of operations under chloroform with the object of transplanting the cornea, from one animal's eye to another animal, hoping ultimately (if successful) to be able to give sight to many human beings, generally regarded as hopelessly blind. I succeeded at last in transplanting the cornea of one rabbit to the eye of another rabbit, immediately prepared to receive it. The transplanted cornea became attached to its new situation, convex, and fairly with the result that the rabbit could see very well with it, which I afterwards tested some scores of times. Having succeeded so well with the animal, I afterwards transplanted the cornea of a rabbit to the eye of a man, with equal success. The cornea became attached, convex, and as satisfactory as the rabbit's in every way up to about fourteen days. The man could distinguish some things, and would, I believe, have had some useful sight in it to have enabled him to get about (for I should have said he was irrecoverably blind in both eyes), but the house surgeon, in showing the eye to a reporter, jerked off at one sweep the isinglass dressings, and so injured the new attachments that they never recovered themselves, and the man became blind again as before the operation. By inserting the above, you will show that medical men are not always asleep even in New Zealand, the recognised uttermost part of the world. —I am, etc., John. Wit.kins, F.R.C.S. Auckland, August 19, 1889.

the disease. These houses were of a precisely similar character to numbers of others near them where no fever appeared. They" had the same water supply; they were under; the same sanitary conditions. A special | investigation was made by the sanitary 1 authorities into this peculiar state of things, with this result -. Of the 431 persons attacked 220 were supplied with milk, by a milk-vendor, Mr. X ; of the remaining 211, 130 received their milk from Mr. X by sending for it; and of the remaining 81 cases IS drank milk got from Mr. Y, who in his turn got it from X, leaving 63 who were not known definitely to have received milk from either X or Y. Of 62 deaths within a given period there were only 14 who were not known to have received milk either X or Y. The cases taken to hospitals show the same remarkable state of things. In a house of business there were 17 people, seven of whom drank:' beer, while ten drank Mr. X.'s milk instead. Of the beer drinkers all escaped. Of the milk drinkers seven out of ten were attacked. In a model lodginghouse, in-15 tenements X.'s milk was consumed, in 47 others the milk was got from other parties. All the latter escaped the typhoid, bub there was one or more cases m every one of the 15 tenements that had their milk from X. And all the milk came from a farm in the country. The nearness of a deep cesspit and a deep well were supposed to be the cause of contamination. Surely the moral to be drawn is, that the fullest powers should be given to every municipality to thoroughly inspect dairies, their water supply, cleanliness of shippons, vessels, and all surroundings from which milk is sent to town for sale, and proper fines inflicted for any neglect. Whatever evil influence too much beer may have on any one, it is quite clear that the use of milk may be vastly more dangerous to health and life than beer taken as named above as an ordinary beverage. Those who avoided the milk of X. and drank beer escaped ; possibly they would have done the same had they drank water. There was death, however, in the milk can—retailed without let or hindrance. —I am, &c. A. Boardman.