REMARKABLE OPERATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3783, 17 July 1936, Page 12

REMARKABLE OPERATION

NAIL TAKEN FROM BOY’S LUNG. WHAT THE OPERATION INVOLVES. Recently cable advice was received that a successful operation had been carried out by a noted American surgeon on the small Australian boy, Kelvin Rodgers, to remove a nail embedded in his lung. More recently a Te Awamutu resident heard a radio telephone talk from the boy to his father in Australia, in which the youngster assured his father that he was well and coming home soon. An Australian paper just to hand contains the following cable message from Montreal, dated June 25th: The removal of the nail which was embedded in the lung of Kelvin Rogers, aged 3} years, of Boort, Victoria, Australia, was accomplished successfully this morning by Professor Chevalier Jackson, ot the Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia. Professor Jackson operated at 10 a.m. and a bulletin issued later this morning announced that with the aid ot a bronchoscope the operation had been completed In seven minutes, and that 'the patient was doing nicely." Kelvin’s mother was at the child’s bedside immediately after the operation. She had been given accommodation at the University while her son was an inmate of the hospital. The successful issue ot the operation closes on a happy note a story of adventure which began almost two years ago with a childish accident. On November 23rd, 1934, Kelvin Rodgers swallowed a large nail. It entered his windpipe and sank into the recesses ot his right Iting. The task of recovering it was beyond the resources of a general practitioner, so he was sent to the Children's Hospital, Melbourne, for treatment by specialists. After two operations the nail remained where it had lodged. Nothing remained but to seek the advice of the world’s highest authority on these matters, Professor Chevalier Jackson. His advice was that there was little immediate danger; that it was hopeless to attempt to remove the nail except with a bronchoscope, such as no surgeon in Australia possessed; that the operative procedure was critical; and- that If the nail were not removed there was little chance of Kelvin surviving to manhood. If Kelvin could be brought to his research institute in Philadelphia, Professor Jackson added, he would gladly perform the operation without charge. MANY DEMANDS ON SURGEON. The most notable feature of the operation performed by Dr Jackson is its extreme delicacy, coupled with a time factor which imposes greater restrictions than almost any other type of surgery. Surgeons in Melbourne expressed the opinion that there was probably not another surgeon in the world who could have attempted the operation with confidence. In addition to the special instrument required—Dr Jackson made his own—a faultless knowledge of the anatomy of the lung and almost uncanny manipulative skill were needed to thread the long tube of the bronchoscope through the delicate labyrinth of tiny air canals, in one of which the nail was lodged. As the patient’s breathing was necessarily restricted while his lung was being explored, not a minute could be spared in searching for the nail once the operation had begun. Objects less deeply Involved in the lung tissue have been removed by specialists in Melbourne. The first step is to fix the position of the object carefully by X-ray photographs taken in two planes. Fortified with this information, the surgeon introduces the bronchoscope—a long, inflexible tube, down which light is reflected, and through which the surgeon may watch the progress of the tip through an arrangement of mirrors—into the throat and down the windpipe. The bronchoscope must be steered delicately into the correct course where the windpipe branches, and carefully along smaller and smaller air ducts until the object is reached. Then fine forceps are passed down the tube and manipulated from the outside until the object is grasped. Withdrawal is as delicate a process as is the introduction of the tube, for the lung tissue must not be damaged in the operation. As the delicacy of the tissues increases with each succeeding stage of depth in the lung, Dr Jackson’s technique has aroused the admiration of surgeons throughout the world.