Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-06-30
RABBIT TO MAN.
SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY IN
PROGRESSIVE SURGERY.
Account of the TranspIanting OF q
MISUNDERSTANDING of Future
Development of the Idea.
from the London Times.

of this new departure in surgery was so
yelled behind orthodox technicalities as to
be scarcely at all calculated to convey to
the general reader the amount of informa-
ton which the Importance of the subject
seems likely to render acceptable. The
operation was performed by DR.. Gersung
of Vienna, and the patient was Professor
Won Fleischl, the distinguished occupant
of the Chair of Physiology in the Univer-
sity of that city. 1t appears that DIR. Won
Fleischl, sixteen years ago, accidentally
wounded himself while conducting post
norton examination, and that the conse-
/ quent severe inflammation of his right arm
and hand led ultimately to the loss of the
terminal Joint of his thumb. The end of
the stump became painful, and, in the hope
of relieving the pain, amputation some
what further back was performed, but was
followed, according to the report, by the
formation of neuromata" At this point
the history becomes little vague, because
the word . neuroma," which is most prop
erly applied 10 4 class of tumors which
form upon nerves, and which consist
mainly of redundant nerve tissue, is applied
with less exactness to tumors of other
kinds of which nerves may be the seat,
and is applied also to dubious enlargements
of the proximal examinations of divided
nerves, enlargements which sometimes oc-
cur after the
BEST PERFORMED AMPUTATION
Which seem to depend on some personal
popularity of the patient, which are liable
to recur again and again after repeated
amputations further back, and which are
attended by the most agonizing suffering.
Itmay be presumed that the neuromata of
Professor Won Fleischl were of the latter
class, and, in the hope of obtaining relief,
he underwent several fruitless operations,
which were directed to dissecting out and
removing portions of the nerves impli-
Gated, without recourse being had to more
extended amputation of other structures
He appears to have been deprived, in sue
cession, of considerable pieces of the
nerves supplying the stump Of the thumb,
both sides of the torefnger, and the inner
side Of the middle finger, but after every
such operation the former conditions were
renewed in the portions which were left,
while the history of many similar cases
had been such as to justify the most dis
NAL forecasts of his future. In these cir
cumstances the idea of repairing the
nerves and of replacing the missing por-
tions by fresh nerve taken from rabbit
suggested itself to DIR. Gersung, and this
proceeding seems, as far as can at present
be judged, to have been attended by COM
plete and most gratifying success.
EXACTLY WHAT NERVES ARE
The nerves of the animal body are fibers
of peculiar organization, which are more
or less packed in bundles or trunks" for
the purposes of distribution, but which are
individually separate and continuous from
origin to termination, and which have no
other function than to convey impressions
from the outposts of the body to the brain
or spinal cord, or in the opposite direction,
stimuli from the brain or spinal cord
which call external parts into action All
nerves appear to be alike, and the differ
ent functions to which they are subservi-
ent depend, not upon any differences in
the nerves themselves, but upon differences
in the parts from which they come or to
which they go. Just as the same tele-
graph wire will move 4 needle or ring Il
bell, or perform any other duty to which
electricity may be applied, according to
the character of the apparatus with which
1t Is connected, so any nerve will do the
duty Of any other, if it be brought into
connection with the apparatus to which
the other rightlully belongs. Whatever
stimulus is applied to the nerve of hear
ing produces a sensation as of sound, and
no other, and whatever stimulus is applied
to the optic nerve produces sensation as
of light, and no other. The former fact is
one of which many people have painful
| knowledge, for great variety of
SOURCES OF IRRITATION
I May come to act upon the nerve Of hear
ing and may give rise to a seeming con-
tinuity of sound which is often exceed
ingly distressing to the patient, as well as
exceedingly embarrassing to the surgeon
Such subjective sounds are said on one oc-
casion to have called forth from an old
Irish woman piteous request to her doc
tor that "if she were spared to die he
would open her head and see if he could
cure the noises in her ears" But the eff
feet thus produced by stimulating a given
nerve does not depend on the nerve itself,
which Is a mere transmitting medium, but
entirely upon the central organ, in the
brain or spinal cord, to which the stimu-
lus is conveyed. If we could connect the
auditory nerve with the center of the
sight and the optic nerve with the center
of hearing, stimulation of the former
would produce impressions of light, and
stimulation of the latter would produce
impressions of sound-a fact which has
been abundantly demonstrated by expert
ment on nerves in more accessible situa-
lions. And, just as there is nothing special
in any individual human nerve, and as
any one of them would he capable of dis
charging the duty of any other so, it NAV
be assumed, there is no difference between
the endOwments Of the nerves of man and
those of the lower animals, which fulfill
identical functions in an identical manner
SUCCESS OF THE EXPERIMENT.
1t was, therefore, inherently probable
that the nerve of an animal, if a piece
could be obtained of the proper size and
length, and if transportation and union
could be successfully effected, would suffice
to make good any loss of nerve in man,
and IN the present instance, which is, we
believe, the first of the kind on record, not
only have the transportation and union
been successful, but the new piece of nerve
seems to have overcome the tendency of
the old to undergo degeneration of struct-
, ure at its divided extremity. a portion,
six centimeters in length, of the great
nerve of a rabbits thigh was selected, and
was so removed from the freshly killed
animal as to include the natural bifurca-
ton of the main trunk into two branches.
The divided stem was secured by stitches
to the stump of the nerve in Professor Won
Fleischis arm. and the ends of the
branches were secured in like manner to
the nerve Examinations which remained in
his fingers and which were rendered use
less by their separation from the trunk to
which they belonged. The whole opera
ton, as matter of course, was conducted
with strict adherence to those principles of
antiseptic surgery without which failure
would have been more than likely, but by
the observance of which union almost
anywhere or of anything can with a near
approach to certainty be secured The
wound healed kindly, the transpIanted
nerve soon became at home in its new posi-
zion, and already, after the lapse of little
more than tge months, it is reported that
sensation is returning to the fingers At