Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-07-06
WITH ARTIFICIAL ARTERIEs.
Extraordinary Case of Conservative
Surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital,
New York.


Nelo York Letter.
"Such extraordinary progress is now
being made in the science of surgery"
said DR.. Keene, the House Surgeon of St.
Vincents Hospital, to a reporter yester-
day, "that although, of course, we shall
never be able to create human being out
of Illuminate matter-a second Franken-
stein, as it were-yet we can patch up an
injured or incomplete human organism in
a manner which would have been consid-
cred utterly impossible a quarter of a
century ago. Bernard Nierney was en-
ployed two weeks ago in laying the blue
stone tagging on the sidewalk in front of
the newly enlarged dwelling-house at the
northwest corner of Clinton place and
Fifth avenue, when the cornerstone, a
| block weighing four tons, rolled from the
! hand-trucks on which it was being pried
along to its place, and, knocking Nierney
down, pinned his legs to the ground. 1t
/ was ten minutes before the ponderous
| stone could be lifted, and then both legs
were found to be crushed to jelly. He
was at once brought here in one of our
! ambulances.
at seemed at first that amputation Of
! both legs would be absolutely necessary
! in order to save his life; but at length we
! determined to try an experiment never
! before attempted in surgery. In both legs
| the tibia and fbula, that is, the shin-bOne
and the smaller one behind it, were crushed
! into a dozen pieces for a length of about
! six inches, extending from just above the
! ankles nearly to the knees. We first re-
| moved all the pieces and splinters of bone,
| taking great care, however, to leave the
periosteum, or membrane surrounding the
| bones, as far intact as possible. This men,
brane is like the bark of tree. If it be
removed the tree dies.
after a long and very delicate opera.
ton we extracted all the bone, but left the
hollow sheath of the periosteum compare
lively intact. Now came the most re-
markabIe part of the case. The main ar
teries in both legs had been crushed and
torn so badly that there was no possibility
of sewing together the pieces. which were
literally in tatters for half the distance
from his ankles to his knees. But unless
these arteries could. be joined together the
feet and ankles would wither away from
lack of the necessary supply of blood. We
therefore entirely removed the injured
portions of these arteries and inserted
very slender tubes Of decalcitied bone,
about as large as a pipe stem, into the
severed ends, and then bound them fast
with catgut thread, thus affOrding an I'M
interrupted flow of blood through the mu-
tilated portions of the legs down into the
feet. We next drew together the nerves
and muscles, all of which had been crushed
ana severed, ana united Ihem WIN caIguG
thread, and then put up both legs in plas-
ter. That was two weeks ago. In two
weeks more he will be able to walk on
crutches, and in two months from now
this man, whose legs for a distance of six
inches were crushed as fiat as my hand,
the bones in them shiyered to splinters
and the arteries, muscles and nerves
either severed or totally destroyed-this
man will walk out of the hospital with
almost as sound pair of legs and feet as
yours or mine."
his legs in place of the arteries?'
"Not longer than two months or so.
The ends of the arteries will gradually
grow over the tubes toward each other
until they meet, and by that time the
tubes, being of decalciied bone, and the
catgut threads will have been completely
absorbed.''