SURGEONS AMAZED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3894, 26 April 1937, Page 6

SURGEONS AMAZED

A “MIRACLE” OPERATION. NEW HEART TREATMENT. When a 64-year-old former ship’s carpenter bent down in the infirmary at Newcastle, England, recently, to pick up a pin, medical men and students alike marvelled at the amazing success of a “miracle” operation. The man who performed the simple feat is Matthew Mason, of Blandford Street, Newcastle, who was admitted to hospital some months ago in the death grip of the dread angina pectoris heart disease. Now he is the. man with the “patched up” heart, and his return to life and health has opened a new era in the treatment of the disease. When Mr. Mason entered the Newcastle General Hospital he suffered agonising chest pains on the slightest exertion. The disease, as always in its later stages, had caused a “clogging” of the blood supply to the heart. As a last resource, a brilliant Newcastle surgeon, Dr. G. Mason, operated and joined up the man’s heart to his diaphragm, so that the bloodvessels of that region could augment the supply to the heart. After the man’s recovery, doctors, surgeons and students gathered in the Royal Victoria Infirmary and watched in amazement while the patient showed them just how completely Dr. Mason’s skill had defeated the disease. The old carpenter walked, ran and picked up the pin without the slightest pain. “I feel as strong as ever I did,” Mr. Mason declared. “I am in better health than I have been for years, and I am longing to get back to work. I mean to take a light job just as soon as my period of convalescence is over.”