The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1897-06-18
sURGE0NS-TOoLS.
tWhere Carvers Of Human Flesh
Get Their Implements
Atranxe inventions for Exploring
and Dissecting Mans Body
Modern Aids to
Surgery.


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 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-
marlxable ideas are born, or assume
form, each one of them concerning in
some way the physical welfare of men.
Every inch of its 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 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-
Establishment sit all day, porting. over
drawings or half-designed instruments,
and studying the suggestions and ideas
that scientific ard medical men from
all ends of the country pour into their
ears.
The elder of these men has been at
this work for Al years, and the estab-
lishment was not Dung then. Thou
sands upon thousands of surgical de-
vices have come forth from it. -Four
or five hundred, perhaps LOCO, inven-
lions of real practical value and utility
are turned out of this room each year.
Doctors write, describing what a GER
t,lin medical appliance, could it be
mnde 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-
Lshment considers it an honor to be
applied TO, the more times the better.
and it l.nows the repute of its product
is spreading far and wide. Thousands
Of dollars yearly go out on this con-
finual experimenting. Some of them
never return. Even in the event OF
great success, and the discovery Of
completely new surgical principle
IA tent is seldom taken out. The doc
1or-inventcr cannot, because OF medical
ethics; the establishment finds it hard
IL worth it's while, because of the en-
pense ard the small number made OF
any one instrument.
1t is as good as fairy story oil the
old sort to spend an hour or more IN
this room, ard see and hear OF the
curious things being planned and eX-
perimentcd with. Many seem to the
layman fantastic in their uses, and the
results accomplished with them moi
TO be believed. One instrument OF this
sort is the bullet probe telephone. with
which the modern surgeon, an binary
telephone receiver strapped to MS ear
can hear, when his probe touches the
bullet far within the tissues, distinct
click. Another novel implement oil
surgery is n minute saw, TO be operatet
inside the nose. its stroke les" 'H"n
quarter Of an inch, run by electricity.
Iicfore this was devised, such internal
saving had to be done by hand, and
dcft as the surgeon might be- he wa,
necessarily slow in comparison WI.
this. A further advantage tnis e'ecIr ,
saw has is that its strokes ere mace
with absolute and perfect regularly
such as the hand and arm OF man eaii-
NOT attain.
Many of the implements ii;aue tei
haze almost revolntionizea cer'..
branches of surgery. In box on U
beaped-up desk spoken OF ray 'iie Ids
time the writer VISITED tils roNi''
delicately adjusted minute 'nSlr ,DD'...
with a scale marked along rs le.s ~. !,
Its purpose vas to make pioS'is III -,
brain safe beyond doubt. y prot
e -. ,,,.e,,;raJ eiHa fitted INTO