Daily camera., 1897-05-07
SURGEONS TOOLS.
Where Carvers of Human Flesh
Got Their Implements.
strange Inventions for Exploring
and Dissecting Mans Body
Modern Aids to
Surgery.

| The building where the manufactur-
ing of every SORT of surgical instrument
and device is lodged is itself one of
the strangest in New York. But few
| blocks from the city hall, it looks as
| though the surrounding piles of brick
| and mortar had squeezed it into half
| its proper compass. The first floor is
a salesroom The hall floors above are
| devoted to stock plan and work rooms.
| In little two-story building in the
ward at the back is the experimental
and repair shop, where eight to ten
nimble-fingered mechanics are on hand.
There is here one room where re-
marltable ideas are born, or assume
form, each one of them concerning in
some way the physical welfare of men.
| Every inch of it's wall is covered with
| framed photographs of the most IA
nous physicians, past and present, OF
Europe and America, each bearing an
autograph signature, all in frames pre-
ciselv the same. A huge old-faShiOned
desk stands by the window, piled high
with foreign scientific reviews in all
languages, catalogues and models in
cleaning metal. hard rubber and glass.
Here the present controllers of the es-
Enlistment sit all day. pOring over
drawings or haIf-designed instruments,
| and studying the suggestions and ideas
that scientific and medical men from
all ends of the country pour into their
ears
The eide. III Eg--,s r."n has been at
this work for - y,-r--s, and the estab-
lishment was not Joung then. Thou
sands upon thousands Of surgical de-
vices Have come forth from it. -Four
or five hundred, perhaps 1000, inven-
tions of real practical value and utility
are turned out of this room each year.
Doctors write, describing what a GER
tain medical appliance, could it be
made thus, might, perhaps, probably
would, accomplish, and forthwith plans
are made, and, after much study and
care, the instrument is designed and
dispatched.
No charge is made the doctors, nor,
on the other hand, do the medical men
derive any profit, however successfully
their idea may work out. The estab-
Eshment considers it an honor to be
applied to, the more times the better,
and it knows the repute of its product
is spreading far and wide. Thousands
of dollars yearly go out on this con-
tinual experimenting. Some of them
never return. Even in the event of
great success, and the discovery of
completely new surgical principle,
patent is seldom taken out. The doc
tor-inventor cannot, because of medical
ethics; the establishment finds it hard
ly worth it's while, because of the ex-
pense and the small number made of
any one instrument.
1t is as good as a fairy story of the
old sort to spend an hour or more IN
this room. and see and hear of the
curious things being planned and ex-
perimented with Many seem to the
layman fantastic in their uses, and the
results accomplished with them not
to be believed. One instrument of this
sort is the bullet probe telephone, with
which the modern surgeon, an ordinary
telephone receiver strapped to his ear,
can hear. when his probe touches the
bullet far within the tissues distinct
click. Another novel implement of
surgery is minute saw, to be operated
inside the nose, its stroke less than
quarter of an inch, run by electricity.
Before this was devised, such internal
saving had to be done by hand and,
l. r. ,,irrhf lOxA bn wa
necessarily slow in comparison with
this. A further advantage this electric
saw has is that it's strokes are made
with absolute and perfect regularity,
such as the hand and arm of man can
not attain.
Many of the implements made here
have almost revolutionized certain
branches of surgery. In a box on the
heaped-up desk spoken of lay, the last
time the writer visited this room,
delicately adjusted, minute instrument
with a scale ma - ss-.z:.4T Its length.
Its purpose was to make probing in the
brain safe beyond a doubt. a probe
of any required size fitted into the
handle, and as the surgeon gently in
serted the tip and went further and
further within the skull the scale would
register the exact energy OF the pres
sure Beyond a certain point there was
danger in penetration. If the scale
registered over a certain fraction of an
ounce, it proved that the probe had
left the track of the bullet and had
touched cellular matter.
'The most curious thing l ever
made?" replied the old instrument
maker, repeating the question. THAT
is hard one to answer. There have
been so many strange things. But
yes-I think the most curious was an
appliance I designed on the ideas OF
a doctor somewhere IN the southwest
for sucking snake bites. 1t was
little instrument anyone could carry
around with him, and when set on the
wound would, the doctor thought
don't know. / can't say myself-suck
Il