The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-18
4 sKr11FuL OPERATION.
Grating 15O Inches of Skin on Man's Body by a Former New Haven Doe

| | tor.
 l The following account of an interest | ing surgical operation is clipped from l the Elmira Telegram, and will be of es-
 pecial interest to our readers, as Dr.
 Jacobs, the surgeon in charge formerly
 resided here, and his parents, MT, and
 Mrs. Marks Jacobs, reside here on Day
 street The doctor is a brother of At
 torney Louis Jacobs of this city. Dr.
 Jacobs took a course at Yale Medical
 school and graduated at Johns Hop-
 kins Medical school, Baltimore, Md.
 The Elmira paper says:
 Few medical cases in this city have
 excited such widespread interest as
 that of John Help, the unfortunate | young man who for the past month has
 been lowering between life and death l with a great part of his skin scalded
 from his body. Help lives on the
 Hendy Creek road, nine miles from this | city, and the accident, which resulted
 in his present painful state, occurred l on August l. On that day he was act
 ing as engineer for steam threshing
 machine owned by Charles Uhl He
 had reached the bridge over the creek
 in the town of Big Flats on the road to
 Far Rockaway and had planked the
 structure as usual prior to making the
 trip across. The bridge timbers had, | however, routed away in some places
 and the forward wheels of the thresher
 went through, letting the machine fall l 4N Iaf& ,,oL L,;l1
 crash.
 Help started to leap from the ma
 chine, but his coat caught in part of it
 and he went down also Miraculously
 enough no bones were broken, but the
 unfortunate man lay under the engine fifteen or twenty minutes, during which
 time he was fearfully scalded. His face, neck, lips inside of his mouth Che
 having inhaled some steam) and his
 right side from his shoulder to his hips, | and from his chest bone around to the l spinal column, were completely boiled with the escaping steam. His entire
 right arm and hand were burned and
 scalded in a fearful manner and his skin on his face right ear and left hand so badly scalded that the skin hung in 1 shreds like a tattered flag. The right
 arm was in the same condition and the whole of the right leg was blistered to l the toes.
 Three deep scalds were also inflicted on the left side of the abdomen, and three large spots were also found on | the hips and calf of the left leg, where 1 the steam had struck him. To show l Helps nerve, it need only be mentioned that he walked to the house of Mrs. Clinton Stone, distant about the length
 of city block and there lay on a sofa from about half-past eight until about
 half-rast eleven, while efforts were
 being made to find a physician in the city. Finally, however, Dr. Jonas Ja-
 cobs was found, and has since been in daily attendance. A Telegram repre- i sentative visited Help last week and saw the sick mans body, which pre-
 sents a truly horrible spectacle. So
 sick. in fact, has he been that his life has been often despaired of, but he has
 now rallied nicely, and will in due time 1 get well.
 Two weeks after the accident Dr. Ja-
 cobs secured water bed for the pa- 1 tient, upon which he was placed, and
 which has added materially to his com l fort. It was impossible to get a
 trained nurse until about two weeks 1 ago, when Nurse H. Louise Wilson was secured, and has since been in con- stant attendance. To save the mans | life pr. Jacobs resorted to oxygen with the happiest effect The oxygen is 1 taken every two hours day and night. On Tuesday last Helps condition was such that Dr. Jacobs resorted to skin | grating, and assisted by Dr. T. A, | Dundas, was successful in grating | portion of his burns To-day he will continue the process, and is in hopes of 1 having more material with which to | work.
 | The skin, which is grafted on the | patient, must be taken from healthy
 men, who must be at the bedside when 1 the operation is performed. At Tues | days operation young relative named Smith donated the skin used. | This skin is taken in very small pieces, and it is believed that friends from Big Flats, who will visit him to-day, will donate enough to permit of grafting nearly all the burned portion. The
 process of grafting consists of pinch ing up from the arm or inner thighs a piece the size of a pin head. This is then clipped off and transferred to | normal salt solution warmed to a tem- perature a little higher than that of the body. In this it is floated out flat, the edges strengthened out and trans- ferred to the patient, close to the edge of the healing portion of the skin. Other gratis are placed along the edges
 of the wound one-half inch apart It, is then covered with protectives and left immovable for three days,
 when, if it shows signs of taking, new
 gratis are put in one one-half inch apart. This is kept up until the whole
 of the burnt surface is covered with
 new skin. It will require about one
 hundred and fifty square inches of skin
 to cover the burned surface on Helps
 body, and in order to prevent contrac- tion after the burns are healed. UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT