The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-11-07
WONDERFUL SURGERY.
A Mans 1ntestines Removed and Subse..
quently Replaced In His Abdomen.
Special to the lndiauapolis Journal

A Mans Intestines Removed and Subse..
quently Replaced In His Abdomen.
Special to the indianapolis Journal
NEW YORK. Nov 5.-A furiously delirious negro
died in Mount Sinai Hospital. That institution is
jewish charity but its benefactions know no color
line. The black had for several days prior to his
death almost constantly insisted that only his skin and
bones remained and that all the rest of him had long
before been taken away to be buried 1t was curious
hallucnation and yet not altogether unreasonable
His wild belief was based on something remarkable
nothing less than of those wonderful surgical op
eratons that nowadays undertaken in desperate
cases. The doctors of Mount Sinai had taken out his
intestines put them into an artificial abdomen made
out of rubber shirt and some hot towels and left
them there until through with investigating cutting and
sewing when they turned him inside in and outside
out again. His trouble was tumor on one of
the arteries. Dr. William F. Pluhrer visiting surgeon
to Mount Sinai and Bellevue Hospital who performed
the operation had the prepared for it by giving
him thorough scrubbng with soap and water and
keeping the abdomen covered with towels wet with q
weak solution of carbolic acid After putting the
patient under the influence of ether the surgeon
an incison extending six inches downward along the
middle line of the body. sheet of this rubber was
placed over the abdone en- slit cut into it from
side and the small intestnes all drawn from the
which then quickly folded over them. holding
them as If in bag To keep them they
covered with towels out of solution of carbolic
acid A ligature of fine silk thread had been pre-
pared by boiling it two hours in carholic acid, and
then soaking it during the operations in weak solu
tion of the acid With two pairs of forceps the opera
tor slit half inch long in the lining of the
back of the abdominal cavity, directly over the
of the shape and size of mans fist. With blunt
curved needle the surgeon passed the
silk hgature around the artery three
fourths of inch from the tunor
where it was firmly tied and the ends short. The
intestines which had been kept in their artificial cav
ty about twenty minutes, were then transferred To
their natural resting place and the wound closed
by stitching the abdomen lining together with catgut
and the skin with silk 1t then dressed with rub
Der tissue and odoform oyer which placed layers
of sEblimated gauze and borated Gotten.
The patient awaked after having been kept insensi.
BILE hours and at first he gave indications that he
would recover. For the first five days he given
hypoderrnic injections of morphine to quiet restless
ness On the first day he allowed 10 eat cracked
ice chen to drink milk and mewater, and the fifth
and sixth days swallow milk and small quantities OF
whisky. The healing of the wound progressed favor
ably but tho acute inflammation began telling on him,
he lost his strength rapidly, and the seventh day
after the operation he died. Drs Fuhrer and Purroy
believe that he would have recovered if his system had
been otherwise sound.
Now with this operation In view, the reader may
think ii perfectly reasonable that the negro should in
his derium have imagined that his interior had been
robbed of ali contents but the fact is that he
knew the nature or extent OF what the surgeons had
done to him. 1t was deemed best not to inform him
to the liberties taken with him while he under
etherzation and he simply knew that operation of
some sort had been performed The interesting scien
tc question therefore arises how hallucnation so
evidently caused by the truth took possession OF hiG
mind Is there such thing as physical memory
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