WONDERS OF SURGERY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue 12998, 10 November 1916, Page 3

WONDERS OF SURGERY.

("Age" Correspondent!) LONDON, August 24. la tbe metropolitan area of London ttere are 168 military hospitals. Threeof these hospitals are buildings owned by public; bodies and residences of private individuals, which have been geneiwaty handed over to the War Office for tie treatment of grounded eofdiers. In ,«0 these military hospitals splendid work il being done in "restoring wounded men to health. The aim of the modern surgeon it out the amputation of shattered limbs, their restoration, so that the great ■tjority of the wounded soldiers may retorn to civil life as useful members of the wmmanity. Amputation is resorted to only when gangrene has set irt, or when *ll other methods of treatment known to wrgical science have failed. At one of •fce largest of th«sse London hospitals over ®OQ soldiers have undergone surgical «>{;eatiuiu, but in all these cases there ha\ e only twenty-five primary aciputatfcos.

la order to give the general public seme •in of the work that is being done by British surgeons in building np the •oomkti, a "party of journalists was convicted over several of the big military fcapitals in London by Colonel Woodward, AisiaUnt Deputy-Director of Medical Servicw for the London district. It "is not powibre to give details of more than a of the wonderful case* which were •wn. but a few are sufficient to indicate remarkable achievements modern WJgerv cm accomplish. At the Queen Alexandra Hospital at Millbank there is a wounded guardsman who, when admitted to the institution, (suffering from a shrapnel wound. Exhalation under the X rays showed that J piece of metal as lar;,'e as a halfpenny fad entered the breast, and was* impeding heart's action. The delicate work of Junovin- the piece of shell was performed a well-known Australian, Dr Major Jjrott Skirying. He thrust his hand into •« incision made by his knife and took _ tli.: piece of metal. The guardsis uuw preserving it as a souvenir, •w there .was a danger that during anaes«®ia the hiri''s might collapse, ether was fjnped into them to keep them distended. operation'was entirely successful, and ">• wounded guardsman will completely ftcoter from a wound which brought him ••win ;in ace of death. At another hoapital is a inau with a "•flet hole near his collar bone, which •fereci tfie nerve controlling the muscles hht wrist. The result was "wrist•°P." ar.d a haud which until mtite reSatlv '.v.Hild have K'en regarded as inuseless. The t\v > ends of a[Jfwed nerve have been freed from what IJjl already become no more than a sear. |p? have been reunited, and there is

P*ry prospect that iri than a twelvopith the h:tn<l will be almost as good as I* _".u; pimple a.< up the iivo l«fe a nit telephone wire," «aid the v.h'i operated. La soldier had part of the fleshy part »>t [J* acn: away, carrying with it 4 of the nerve necessary to control *• hand movements. The surgeon rang 5 sevtral hospitals on the telephone till * Beard of what he wanted—the araputhat afternoon of a healthy limb. j/J nnsb happened to be a teg."and it J® amputated at 3.30 in the afternoon, jj? «ooi)sr rvas it off that 4 or 5 inches • PracLcaliy living nerve were remove*! •"j® the calf, placed in a saline bath and jWwt by taxi to the military hospital. patient was already under an "Esthetic. The wotmd in his arm was with the lancet, the end.-* of the nerve quickly found, and JJ* circuit re-established, is it were, by jr* o4 of the first patient's four inches of !*®«nt. To-day the wounded soldier is re o a ' n ' n S '^ e uae of ij" a, I,t r - e number of cases a broken v"? u carefully joined by means of a splint, which ia screwed to the bone *"*V aa a carpenter screws two pieces of ■*« together. The steel plate, which ii about an inch wide and four or a "ochea long, remains permanently in *"iund, together with the steel screws. - the patient suffers no inconvenience C o r® n r 3e 3 n ence. It is the opinion of j*? 1 " Pilcer, who has performed many Owe operations, that in. time the steel ■ »k altogether, being dissolved ' ron i» one of the cori°i the blood the splint does not At »i. e t,* oare * °* - «** «• Hammersmith Hospital, where in dificult joint cases, a uZ"**® Mldier had a wvere wound in vat, figjß which tiiree incite* of

bone had been blown away. A surgeon removed a piece or the fibula from one of the patient s legs, leaving the encasing membrane., which threw np new bone, so that the leg was none the worse. The removed bone was sharpened at both ends, and dovetailed into the injured limb, which has been completely restored.

Some of the most valuable surgical work is being done without using the knife. _ In hundreds of instances the muscles of a limb, say those of the entire leg below the knee, become atrophied, by disuse following an injury at some higher point. They are so entirely lacking iu tone when the opportunity for nse recurs that they cznnot even start on the road to recovery,and threaten to become permanently valueless. Some twenty patients with liinba in this condition were in one of the wards visited. A nurse bent over each man; she was applying at regular intervals of a few seconds a small pad, connected by wires, with an electrical apparatus, to" the chief muscles of "leg or arm. At each application one could see the atrophied musclfea tighten, aud the foot or hand rise for about an inch from the bed. The movements were entirely automatic, as each experiment showed the patient in each case was unable to impart | the slightest motion to the extremity. Under this gentle system of training; the | muscles slowly regain their tone tiptil the j man can take exercise in the elaborately fitted hospital gymnasium. - Wonderful results are being achieved in restoring the appearance of men who have been laciallv disfigured. Eyes, noses, cheeks, lips, eyebrows are replaced with substitutes, whose artificial character it is almost impossible to detect. This work is under the supervision of Lieutenant Derwent Wood, the famous sculptor. Not only is the facial disfigurement of a wounded man repaired, but with a photograph as a guide every effort is made to effect repairs that will restore his former appearance. Facial repairs are carried out l»y moulding a piece of copper plate to the shape of the natural parts, silvering it over, painting it to correspond with the other side of the face, putting in an eye when the eve has been l6st, and fixing the whole struct are by means of spectacles which are attached to the plate. Some of the most cruel wounds are those in the jaw. The disfigurement is often horrible, and speech and mastication are impossible. But the Gnnning splint has "provided the sureeons with a means of gradually prcssing back the remains of the jaw into their natural position, and of smoothing out the most ghastly of the scars.