Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-07-28

Chfoaoo Inter Ocean.

Chicago Inter ocean.
DR.. Bliss says that soon after President
Garfield was shot he explored the wound
to a depth of three and half inches
with ''Nelaton probe" which showed
no traces of a contact with lead. This
probe is well known among surgeons,
and is kept for sale by every dealer in
surgical instruments, but great curiosity
has been expressed by people not con-
nected with the profession as to how it
indicates contact with lead as dis.
tinguished from a contact with bone or
other hard substance. The simple ex-
PLANTATION is that the minute, pear
shaped bulb of the unglaZed white por-
celain, about the size of the smallest pea,
which is attached to the tip of the
probing needle, is discolOred by the
metal 1t touched, whose particles can be
Identified, if necessary, by the magnify
ing glass or by chemical tests.
This little instrument has a curious
history, as was related by DR.. j. n.
Hyde, of this city, in a paper read be-
fore literary society some months ago.
General Garibaldi was wounded in the
battle at Asprc monte in 1862, by ball
which penetrated his boot and stocking
and lodged in his foot. After two
months of suffering at SpeZzia, his Ital-
ian phys Clans, Ripari and Albanesse,
declared 1t there was no ball in the
foo. Cypriani supposed, merely, that
the revers5 might be true. Then they
summoned the foreigners. The Russian,
Pirigoff. said: "No ball" Partridge,
the Englishmau, who insisted on receiv-
ing an enormous fee in advance before
he would consent to leave England, said ::
There is no ball in the foot" On the
28th of Octobers fifty nine days after the
infiiction of the wound, Nelaton, who
had been summoned from Paris, arrived
at Spezzia. There was consultation
with four nations in the front parlor
anxious to hear the result, and seventeen
surgeons in the upper front bedroom.
only one of whom was capable of carry
ing off the hOnors.
by the aid of stylet, wrote NelatOD,
81 explored the wound, and at the depth
of two and half centimeters l encOun-
tered dense resisting mass, giving a
dull percussion sound very different from
that resulting from impact upon indura-
ted tissue, or the roughened surface Of
spongy bone. Incllning the stylet, l
lJdSSS0 DClOuO InC OOOldClCy duO al l0C
depth of five or six centimeters | felt the
resistance of bone" The obstacle was
the ball In order to prove it, he fast
ened bit of Sevres porcelain to the ex-
tremity of probe, which Garibaldi him
self introduced into the wound. There
it was firmly pressed against the ball
and Withdrawn, when the extremity Of
the porcelain, no longer white, was
found to be covered with delicate black
layer of metallic aspect, which was sub
iected to analysis and found to be lead.
Thus a new sort of probe for gun-shot
wounds was invented by Nelaton, whose
name it bears, and Garibaldi was saved
by the extraction of the.ball-a bit of lead
which, as the song went, was "trans-
mitted by NelatOn into purest gold. >
The French surgeon refused to accept
any hcnorarium, "esteeming himself, ."
as he remarked like a true Partisan,
sufficiently rewarded in saving the life
of the illustrious General who had so Of
ten exposed it ia the noble cause of
emancipation and independence
NelatOn's name was in every mouth.
Figaro and the Paris journals were
ecstatic. The magazines, the story and
the song books could not recite the tale
sufficiently often The most popular
ballad of the day was the air from which
a line is given above
a stanza in another part Of the same
dOggerel production may be rudelY
translated as follows:
Now tell me, who was it, beg, sir,
That took the ball out of your leg, sir?
Oh, where are the words to employ,
In describing the comfort feel!
1t was Nelatun did it. my boy.
When he slipped the ball out Of my heel
For full five years after the lucky
probing at Spezzia there was scarcely a
photographer in France who could not
supply purchasers with the famous pic.
ture, representing the surgeon standing
beside the wounded General, who re-
clined on a cot with his foot swung
above in a portable frame, and the
words underneath: CDR. Nelaton de-
clares that amputation will not be neces-
sarV "