OPERATION ROOM MARVEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18585, 18 December 1923, Page 12

OPERATION ROOM MARVEL.

NEW LOCAL ANAESTHETIC. NO SHOCK OR NAUSEA, [from our OWN correspondent. LONDON, Oct.' 81. The wonders of local anesthesia, which lias for long enabled doctors to operate on the eye while the patient, perfectly , conscious, turns it in any , direction required by the operator, have now been extended to the interior of the body. > For those'who are able to stand it there are great advantages, for the local anaesthetic prevents shock, and is not followed by after sickness. The latest form of local anaesthesia employed for internal operations requires a procedure which is in itself an operation of marvellous delicacy and accuracy. The fluid used to produce the insensitising effect must be made to soak the minute nerves which supply sensation to the walls of the stomach. When it is realised that these nerves lie near the front of the spine, right at the back of the inside of the abdomen, that they arenear the two largest blood vessels <?f the Body, and that the point of the needle entered from the back must be made to lie among these nerves and yet not touch the bloodvessels, it can be imagined how difficult a procedure this " splanchnic anaesthesia" is to carry out. The surgeon guides himself by outside landmarks,' and, when the needle is inside, by accurate knowledge of the direction in which it is being pushed, and of the exact anatomy of trie region which it traverse)!. Like the mariner with ■ a navigation chart, he reaches the desired port by closely following the way marked out by previous investigations.