PAIN STOPPED BY SILK.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13656, 11 May 1908, Page 7

PAIN STOPPED BY SILK.

LONDON SURGEON SOLVES A

QREAT PROBLEM.

RELIEF TO CANCER VICTIMS.

One of the greatest problems which have hitherto defied surgical skill has recently been, solved by a well-known London surgeon (says the Daily Mail): The new operation, described by the originator, Professor W. Sampson Handley, of the Royal College of Sur-' geons in England, in the Lancet, is a method of supplying channels for lymph circulation m limbs whose lympatnic vessels have been destroyed by cancel growth. According to Dr. Handley, in about one case of six after the operation for breast cancer, the tiny veins through which the lymph supply of the arm is returned to the body are destroyed, the condition resulting being known as "brawny arm." Extremely painful, the swollen and practically paralysed limb adds largely to the? other terrible sufferings of the cancer victim. _ Dr. Handley's operation, consists or implanting silken threads in the tissues under the skin of the swollen arm. These threads extend from the wrist to, the armpit. Dr. Handley, in using simple silk threads, relies on the capillary action of the silk fibres to direct the lymph up the arm until it meets the healthy tissues about the armpit, where the uninjured lymph vessels can carry it away. . Experience in the Cancer' Research Laboratories of the Midlesex Hospital has shown Dr. Handley that silk thread so imbedded will remain practically intact and unabsorbed, retaining its cttpiUary power of drawing back to the circulation through its fibres the lymph which had collected in the limb and had, since the destruction of its vessels, no other means of return. This capillary force or power is a little understood natural phenomenon which will cause any fluid to flow up

any minute tubo the lower end of which is immersed in tho fluid. In the case of the silk threads the minute spaces between the silk fibres form separate capillary tubes, along which tho lymph gradualy mounts until the upper ends of the threads are reached.

In a recent case in which Dr. Handley tried his operation the patient had had a cancer removed five years ago, and during the past, three years the swelling, hardness, paralysis, and pain in the arm had been increasing. Four wefks after the introduction of the threads the pain had entirely disappeared, the paralysis had largely passed off, and the arm had returned practioally to its normal size.