The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-07-31
SURGICAL EXPLOITS.
SUCCESSES GIVEN TO THE WORLD;
FAILURES SUPPRESSED.
An Arm With a Canine Annex-What IL
Done in the Amphitheatres of the
Medical SchOo1s-TheOries
Tested.
New York Cor. Chicago Journal

You have already read about the Gu
riously successful surgery which girl OF
this CITY underwent. Having lost sec
ton of the principal muscle from one
arm and being thus incapacltated for
work, the surgeons of Bellevue hospital
inserted the lacking material from a New
foundland dog, patched up the wound,
made it heal, and finally restored the arm
to usefulness The girl was under ether
while the operation was going on, and
knowledge of its nature was kept from
her until cure was complete Then the
particulars were given TO the reporters,
and she got the news simultaneously with
the rest of the public.
You ask me what is or what may be,
the effect on the imagination of the girl?"
said the surgeon with whom L talked.
We'll, she happens to possess strong
nerves and general good health She
seemed little shocked on learning that
there was a canine annex to her arm, and
she was anxious right off, to know what
sort of dog had contributed the ma
teriaL He had been killed Immediately
after the operation, because it would have
left him badly manned She said she
was sorry for that, as she would like to
have had him to keep. She was de-
lighted to be told that he was a fine
specimen of his good-natured, intelligent
breed; and she said she'd never, never
or a bulldog or any ugly brute. A
fashionable pug might have pleased her,
vet on the whole she thought she would
have chosen a New FOundland if the Sc
lection had been left to her.
She is laundry girl, and probably
not given to the consideration OF fine
mental or physiological theories; and so
1t is left to you professional writers to
speculate on the effects of the amalgama-
ton. There are persons so finicky that,
every time they coughed after a piece of
dog had been engrafted into them, they
would imagine that they were barking;
and death by imaginary hydrophobia
would be a possibility, but in this case l
don't anticipate any trouble of that sort
If Annie Pennell had died from the
failure of the dogs flesh to heal with her
own, no mention would ever have been
made in print of the dangerous expert
ment Only the surgical successes are
given to the world the failures are sup
pressed. Nothing was known by the
newspapers of this case until two weeks
after the operation when the arm was re-
stored to it's original value. That very
many exploits in surgery come to deadly
ends cannot be doubted. They are per
formed in the center of a small amphi-
theatre where the students of one or an
other of the medical schools meet on
appointed days to be practically in
anu INC surgeons lGCluIC OK
planatorily as they work. telling what
they are doing and the expected results.
IF there is a success, says student
to me, "the patient is usually exhibited to
US again. to the glory of the operator; but
many and many a case is never seen or
mentioned in a clinic again afterward, and
the supposition is that defOrmity or death
has been caused The subjects are usually
poor persons-gratis patients in the hos
pitals-and the surgery on them is largely
In the nature of vivisectiOn. That is, they
are made to stand the risk of expert
ments which may and may not turn out
we'll
"If Gen. Grant had been an unknown
patient in public hospital, there would
have been knife in his throat ere this;
and he might have gained by it,
too; but surgical experiments, mind you.
are not tried on illustrious persons. Nat
urally, the surgeon makes his novel and
perilous feats under circumstances which
will hide his failure. l am not blaming
him, either and it is fact that about all
of the progress in both medicine and
surgery is achieved through tests of thee
ries in the hospitals The subjects are
usually in a hopeless condition; they do
not dread. the ordeal, for its nature is not
fully explained to them; and often they
are restored TO health besides contributing
to the stock of science.