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Colonist, Issue 86, 17 August 1858, Page 4

An Operation at St. George's.—r The little bell rings, and all the patients' eyes turn towards a particular part of the wall. There we see a large dial, like that of a barometer, with a hand in the centre. Round it are the names of the medical officers, nurses, and the words accident, operation, chapel,\&c. There is one of these dials in every ward, and allare worked by a^ series of} iron rods which'■cornmunicateWitH each other, the impulse being given by the porter Below in the hall. By this means any thing that is going on in the hospital is known simultaneously at every part of it. The bell that has just rung is part of the apparatus, and draws attention to the movements of the hand. It stops at " operation;" and in a minute afterwards a long line of students are seen winding up the stairs, the surgeon at their head. He looks'calm; but depend upon it, he bears an anxious mind, for life and reputation wait upon his skill. Let us follow the crowd; a new spirit has come over the students; the jolliest and most careless walk up steadily and silently. -It is to be a tremendous operation-—onei of the great arteries, deep down in the pelvis, has to be tied, and no one knows how it may terminate. Steadily",and quietly the Operating Theatre is overflowed from the.top benches, and the spectator looks down upon a hollow cone of human heads. The focus of this living mass is the operating table, on which, covered with a sheet, lies an anxious patient; and every now and then he sweeps7 with an anxious glance the sea of heat^ which surrounds him. Close to ; him is the surgeon; his white cuffs lightly turned up, examining carelessly a gleaming knife,' and; talking

in whispers to his colleagues and assistants. Slowly the bewil^^i countenance of the patient rdaxe^--h9 breathes peacefully,-—he sleeps, under the-benefi-cent influence of chloroform, like a twoyears' old child. The sheet is removed, and there lies a motionless, helpless, nervenumbed life; an assistant pushes back the eyelid, and the fixed eye stares vacantly at the roof. The student below us clutches the bars in front of him. It is his first operation; and he wishes he were far away; and wonders how the nurse can stand so calmly, waiting with the warm sponges. There is a sudden movement forward of every head, and then a dead silence. The surgeon has broken into the house of life, and every eye converges towards his hands —those hands that manipulate so calmly~ those fingers that see, as it were whjere vision,, cannot penetrate, and which singly.out v unerringly, amid' the tangled' net-work of the frame, the life-duct that they want. For a moment there is a painful pause;. an instrument has to be changed, and the operator whispers to his assistant. "Something is going wrong," flashes in a moment through every mind. No; —the fingers proceed with a precision that reassures; the artery'is tied; and the life -that trembled upon the verge of eternity is called back, and secured by .a loop of whipcord I . There is alouzz, ancTa general moyement in the ■ theatre; the huge hollow cone of heads' turns round, and becomes a cloud of white faces, no longer anxious.— Dichns's Mousehold Words.