Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-25

les, tbsn Grain 1nsrSasor Ssafs ana
favorable conditions will increase so rapidly
if unmolested, that in three days the aggre-
cation of microbes would form Q mass
weighing 800 tonsl
Amputations in old times were nearly
always followed by Surgical fever" now
adays a patient often doesn't miss meal
or nights sleep and rarely has any fever at
ALL" "If the antiseptic method of amputa-
tion had been in use during the war OF the re-
bellion." says one of the most eminent
authorities of this city, ''the pension list
would be at least $50, 900, 900 greater year
than it is nowp'
What frightful loss of life, now consid-
cred unnecessary, that implies! But how
hard the doctors are working and have
worked to make things easy in this way for
suffering humanity. Lister had to 60 to
France to vivisect animals, use the antiseptic
bandages on them and so discover the most
marvellous achievement o. century!
OPERATIONS ON THE BRAIN.
The brain was long by the unsurgical
mind considered the last resort and inner
sanctuary of life, and fractured skull and
an exposed brain were accepted as
necessarily meaning death. But all
tnaL Is cudHSeu uOWs OupPOSo rVu nle q
ball into your brain, as Ernest Schil-
ling did at San Antonio, Tex, in March,
1886, as plenty of people have done since
then, without fatal results, nearer home.
After nine days in bed he got up and went
about his business. William Bell, of New
Hampshire, by the premature explosion of
blast, had drill driven through his head,
piercing his brain through and through.
William Bell got well, and went to quarry
ing again with considerably less brain and
probably more sense. Henry Gruber,
Paterson saloonkeeper, not long ago fired
two balls into his brain. The next morning
the doctors found him sitting up, chatting
and drinking beer with his friends.
But come nearer to the doors
Of the temples of surgery. Up to
o. cutting open the intestines for the pur-
pose OF treating gunshot wounds in the alb
domen, had never been performed in New
York. The first operation of the kind was
done by DR.. William T. Bull on patient
% years of age II hours after he had received
five wounds of the small and one OF the
large intestine. Since that time the opera
tion has been performed ITO times, In "a
cases by American surgeons, with mortal
ity of only 6S per cent.
ALWAYS READY FOR NEW METHODS.
The number of surgeons who thus dared
to do what was considered fatal, until one
of them had succeeded and so blazed the
way for the others, was very great, showing
how eagerly the profession watches the prog
ress of its leaders. Yet here were nearly
40 lives absolutely saved alter the receipt of
wounds that scarcely more than i've years
since were thought to defy the surgeons
skill.
"But." as one of the famous New York
surgeons said to the writer night or two
since. "the human liver has never yet been
cut ont. That is one impossible operation
as surgical science stands to-day. There
has never been a successful operation in
New York City for rupture of the intestines
caused by blows on the abdomen, although
two such cases have been cured by surgeon
in London. The pancreas and certain parts
of the bladder have not yet been touched by
the surgeons knife.
"Iancer of the stomach is disease abso-
lutely incurable by medicine. 1t ma kes
yery slow progress, however. 1t requires
two or three wears to kill its victim. Now"
and the eminent surgeon waxed eloquent,
elf the cancer could be properly attacked
by the knife in the first year or IL mouths
of its course, lite might be saved Dy the re-
moval of portion of the stomach Itself.
AL eminent surgeons are loohinS ioi ""hu
to this consummation.
CENTRAL STATION OF THE BRAIN.
'The human brain has not yet been re-
moved, of course. We may cut away those
portions or areas of the brain which have to
do with eyesight and speech and the motion
OF the extremities. But the medulla oblon-
gaia is not to be touched by the knife-that
is the seat OF liie. the central station, with
which all portions of the brain are in COM
municatlon. Damage to it impairs the
action of the heart and lungs and so saps the
fountains OF life.
"a number Of New York and Philadel-
phia surgeons operated on Mary Anderson,
the young girl who was shot in the brain by
Barclay Peak at Mount Holly, N. j. She
died after the bullet had been located by
DIR. j. II. Girdner, of New York, with his
induction balance or electric probe. Many