Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1897-04-14
SURGEONS TOOLS.
Where Carvers Of Human Flesh
Get Their Implements
strange Inventions for ExD1orfng
and DfssectfnG Mans Body
Modern Aids to


The building where h manufactur-
ing of every sort of surgical instrument
and device is lodged is itself one of
the strangest in New York. But a 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 hoor Is
4 salesroom. The hall floor above are
devoted to stock, plan and work rooms
In a little two-story building in the
yard 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
markable 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-
cisely the same. A huge ol~d-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-
Establishment sit all day, porting over
drawings or half-designed instruments,
and studying the suggestions and ideas
that scientific and medical men from
all ends of the country pour into their
ears.
The elder of these men has beer at
this work for AZ years, and the estab-
lishment was not young 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 al honor to be
applied to, the more times the better.
and it knows the repute of its product
is spreading far n wide. Thousands
of dollars yearly go out on this ccn-
tinual experimenting. Some of them
never return. Even in the event of
great success, and the discovery of n
completely new surgical principle. a
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
n one instrument.
1t ia 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
result accomplished with them not
to he 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, a distinct
click. Another novel implement OF
surgery is a minute saw, to be operated
inside the nose, its stroke less tha a
quarter of an inch, run by electricity.
Before this was devised, such internal
| saving had to be done by hand, and,
delft as the surgeon might be, he was
| necessarily slow in comparison with
| this. A further advantage this electric
saw has is that its strokes are made
| with absolute and perfect regularity,
such as the hand and arm of IN a can.
not attain.
Many of the implements made herr
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, g
delicately adjusted, minute instrument
with a scale marked along its length
Its purpose was to make probing in the
brain safe beyond a doubt. A prob<
of any required size fitted into the
handle, and as the surgeon gently in
serted the tip and went further ano
further within the skull the scale wouio
register the exact energy of the pres
sure. Beyond a certain point there was
danger i'm penetration. If the scale
registered over a certain fraction of al
ounce, it proved that the probe hao
left the track of the bullet and had
touched cellular matter.
THE most curious thing i ever
made?" replied the old instrument
maker, repeating the question. "Thai
| is a hard one to answer. There have
been so many strange things. But
yes-I think the most curious was al
appliance / 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 set on th'
wound would, the doctor thought
| don't know. / can t say myself-suci
| the poison out in short order. ! made
the instrument according to instruc
tons, and the doctor professed himself
veil satisfied. How it worked in actua
pr ictice Inever heard."-N. Y. Tribune