The record-union., 1898-01-30


cal to be described popularity. Sehiar-
ters method of connecting the oesoph-
agal tube direct with the intestine,
after removing the stomach complete
ly, is the crowning achievement OF his
operation. Taking the intestine pre-
cisely at its right fold, he fastened the
two together by a suture, a brilliant
bit of surgical work that required the
greatest technical skill for its accom-
plishment.
OF this operation and its consequences
DR.. George T. Shrady, the editor OF
The Medical Record and a surgeon
of wide repute himself. says: Il am
not speaking for myself but for the
profession, when l say that Schlatter's
operation is to be considered one of the
greatest triumphs of modern surgery.
He has gone incontestably further than
any other man, and he has done what
no one else ever dared to do. The op-
Grafton and its results speak for them
selves; the woman operated uoon is
living, and has lived for three months
She is now in good health and without
a stomach can work. The food is, o.
course, trife more carefully pre-
pared than would be ordinarily, but
she has no troubie in digesting, and eats
nearly what the other patients in the
hospital do. Even if she should die
now, or later on, these facts would not
be altered. 1t. has been shown to
be Possible for q woman 10 live with
out a stomach" &.
DR.. Robert Il. Weir takes a more con-
servarivc view. Understand" he says.
1 am not undertaking or minimizing
the achievement of DR.. SchIatter. 1t
was brilliant operation, and will sure
~ De attempted again and again. Moth
ing Ike 1t has ever been done before
Ii stands alone. and DR.. Schlatter, the
young German, who is as yet only an
assistant, should have the fullest cred
H. But do not see that it has a fu-
ture Not enough time has elapsed yet
TO say whether the operation was really
a success. We say in cases of cancer
that two years must go by after an op-
Grafton before its success can be deter
mined. If the woman lives that time
then the operation will prove to have
real substantial value"
In Greis Smiths recent MNrk on "Ab
oomlhal Surgery" this passage on op-
eratioas of this sort occurs
The operation is a very fatal one.
Mikulicz of Cracow. collected thirty
TWO cases, of which only eight recov-
cred from the effects of the operation
up to the end of 1887. Billroth is re-
ported to have operated eighteen times,
saving eight patients for a longer or
sHofter tune. The most recent
statistics are at once contradictory and
unpromlSlng. McArdle has collected
records of seventy operations nine for
simple structure, siXty-two for cancer
OF the former five recovered and three
died; Of the latter twenty-one died di-
rectly from the operation. fourteen from
peritonitis of septic absorption. and the
remaining twenty-seven made good re-
coVerles, many of them being reported
well four years after operation 1t is
pity that, in this report, fuller details
OF the cases We're not given; for then it
might have been possible to explain
the remarkable discrepancy with Bull
Inns painstaking studies, which seem
to demonstrate that thus far not one
case of those which recovered from the
operation can be claimed TO have been
really cured of the disease"
Yet another interesting phase of this
subject is regarding the actual process
OF digestion in human being without
a stomach. The starchy foods and the
fats, as has long been known, are di-
gested mainly in the intestines with
the aid of the pancreatic juice and the
bile. But the albuminoids are digested,
as is also certain, in the stomach
through pepsin excreted there. hydro
chloric and Tactic acid How does ma
ture do without these, as she is GER
tainly doing in the case of Schlatter's
Anna Lands? This is something that
evidently, nature can arrange and adj
just her problems.
Some very curious things can be told
in this regard Artificial digestion in
tubes has long been scientifically pos
sible. The food is mixed with certain
chemicals and allowed to stand in these
tubes until it has assumed a certain
form. Then it is fed to the patient
There are several men in New York
alone, one a prominent man of affairs,
daily seen on the streets, who take al
their nourishment through tubes that
lead directly into their intestines. That
these people may get the qualification
of taste as we'll as be nourished, they
are furnished with outfits that lead
as described. They chew
in the regular manner, but the food,
once masticated passes down this arti
fetal tube one end of which is in their
mouths - New York Tribune.