The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1897-04-01
SURGEONS TOOLS.
Where Carvers of Human Flesh
Get Their Implements.
'trange Inventions for EXPLORING
and Disseoting MANS body
Modern Aids to
Surgery.

Surgery.
The building where the inanufactur-
ng of every sort of surgical instrument
nd device is lodged is itself one of
he strangest in New York. But few
blocks from the city hall, it looks as
hough the surrounding piles of brick
md mortar had squeezed it into half
is proper compass. The first floor is
salesroom. The hall floors above are
;evoted 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 ara 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 its wall is covered with
framed photographs of the most fa-
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-
tablishment sit all day, poring 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 been at
this work for ~ 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-
tons of real practical value and utility
are turned out of this room each year
Doctors write. describing what 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-
lshment 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 a
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 its while, because of the ex-
pense and the small number made of
any one instrument.
1t is as good as 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, a 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,
deft 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 us the hand and arm of man can
not attain.
Many of the implements made here
have almost revolutionized certain
branches of surgery. In box on the
heaped-up desk spoken of lay, the last
time the writer visited this room, a
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 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 certain point there was
danger in penetration. If the scale
registered over 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 ! designed on the ideas of
doctor somewhere in the southwest
for sucking snake bites. 1t was q
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
the poison out in short order. l made
the instrument according to instruc-
tions, and the doctor professed himself
well satisfied. How it worked IL actual
practice never heard."-N. Y. Tribune.
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