Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1892-04-08
RAPID PROGRESS IN SURGERY.
skln-Graf.,nr Is No l.one.r Novel, and
Bones Are successfully Trsnsplantcd.

The telegraph continues to note
skin-grafting experiments as if they
were novel. 1t is a long time since
surgeons in any country hesitated to
resort to skin-graftlng whenever
necessary. The only difficulties en-
%countercd now arc i'm getting consent
of hca.thful people to loss of cuticle
and the perfect purgation of the trans
ferrcd skin before attempted applica-
ton on the victim of accident. S6in-
grating is going on everywhere in
hospitals and private practice. Its
next step will he to find the lower
anima! Or animals that can be used
for human beings service as safely as
human beings themselves. Bones of
lower animals have been successfully
introduced in whole or part into the
hulnan SYSTEM. Man is being re-
paired lin countless ways unknown to
the profession IL hundred years ago.
Danger in daring, il no longer
novel, experiments of this nature
arises o from the knife hut from
poisoning. Although science has
scrnpulously sought for protection
against this peril it is always present,
and, although pain has been allaycd
rs cocaine. by ether and other means
of c'Tccting local or general insensi-
bility, distilled water injected under
the skin being the latest suggestion,
science is unable always to guard
against the possibility of inserting
disease germs when undertaking to
lcngthcn life.
Dr. Robert Carter. an eminent
british authority, writing of this, has
said that as to bacteria being the
cause of many diseases investigation
of the subject on the presumption of
truth in the theory is only in lis in
fancy. 1.-The whole question is only
beginning to take shape and outline,
and il would be useless to attempt to
forecast conclusions which may here
after be attained. Among the dis
cascd conditions i'm the causation of
which bacteria seem to hold i; pIomi-
ncnt place must he mentioned some
of the consequences of septic or putrc-
factivc poisoning by accidental or de-
signed incubation. IT. is extensively
believed that such incubation may
be produced by the prcscmcc in the
atmosphere, ana, hence, by the intro
ductlon in the wounds of bacterial
germs; especially when, as in nos
pitfalls, the atmosphere is exposed to
contamination by matters proceeding
from the bodies of the sick. The
most recent researches, however,
rather Indicate that the injurious cf-
fccts of germ incubation and of consc-
qucnt bacterial growth are not so
much due to the presence of these
bodies, or to amy direct influence
which they exert, us to chemical
changes in the blood which they serve
to originate and which mav after
ward he continued Independently of
thcm.:'
Here lies the problem that con-
fronts the medical profession in it's
first period of experiment in making
animals of different species or even
the same useful in repairing injury in
other animals. Although local i'm
pairmcnt may apparently he remcdicd.
essential danger may he implanted
with the very remedy that promises
only healing.
The discovery of anTsthctics 10y Sir
Humphrey Davy. first published i'm
1880, was really the beginning of the
new era in surgery. B~actcriology has
come in with the experiments of
Pasteur and others, but while new
an~@sthctics have been found, the
germ hypothesis remains practically
where Pasteur left it. and even his
demonstrations are by no means final
of convincing. The old reckless
fashion of cutting off a quarter of Il
human being whenever he injured
lis knee or Scraped his elbow, and of
bleeding him to death whenever he
drank too much clarct or permitted
his temper to get the better of him,
has given way to conservative surgery
THAT is able to restrict the injury
within a narrow area and not only
avoid removal of uniniured parts of
the body. but even replace with
cleanly tissue that which has been
taken away. This is rational and
humane art. Surgery, next to cleo
tricity. has made the greatest strides
of useful sciences within fifty years.
But it is not yet certain that, while
vastly better equipped for preventing
disease and conducting restoration, it
is secure from the deadly danger of
communicating disease.
Microscopic power is not sufficient
to insure the surgeon that the skin,
bone. or blood he is going to transfer
is pure both at the time of transfer
cncc and for all time. An instru-
ment bearing the same relation to Sc
cludcd germs in tissues under con-
sidcration for such uses that the
ophthalmoscope has to treatment of
the eye will doubtless he among the
inventions of the next quarter cen
fury, and il is not improbable that
electricity, which is only beginning
to he known in healing science, will
contribute toward it's invention and
success .-Chlcago Herald. .
Perilous Feats Unchecked.
I'VE terrible parachute accident at
fQnpHTt r,nc1,,I1D, Ah~ -4-A