Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1900-08-23
YOURSELF AT HOME.
Surgical Operations In Public.


specially of affections of the eve, gave
an entertainment to the good people
of a town not many miles from Lam
caster the other day. that was an in
novation. for a certainty. He issued
invitations to friends and acquain-
tances TO view an operation which he
performed to straighten a pair of
cross eyes. There is a technical
name for the disease, but it was plain
cross eyes. The patient was a young
lady, and the place where the opera
ton was performed was the parlor of
the hotel, and the audience which at
tended the entertainment was COM
posed of newspaper reporters and
others. The reports give a full de-
scription of the operation, describe
the girl. and how she stood it, the
nervousness of the spectators and the
GOODNESS of the doctor, who handled
his instruments with delicacy, drew
little blood, and in few minutes the
girl got up from the operating table
with her eyes as straight as a gun
barrel, and tickled to death to feel
that she could look square at any body
and not around corner. This is all
right as an advertisement for the eye
doctor, and shows there are new
things under the sun, but will it not
be apt to stimulate other doctors to
want to show off in public. and give
exhibitions of their skill? If this
thing is going to be catching, we
shall find doctors advertising public
exhibitions of amputations, and all
other operations, the same as a show.
People are getting so they like to at
tend shows that have bloodin them.
Those who visit theaters that serve
up DR.. Jeckyls and Mr.. Hyde, or who
love the plays where so many actors
ara killed that the play has TO be
finished by the stage hands, would
hail surgical operation as form of
amusement that they could HE to.
All things are changing, and the
vertise an operation such as the re-
moval of tumor at the marked
down prices of ten, twenty and thirty,
while an operation for the removal of
a mans liver would come higher
The amputation of leg ought to APP
peal to all who love tragedy, while
the cutting off of a finger or two.
without administering chloroform
would give the audience an
exhibition of nerve that they do
not often see on the stage.
The time may come when the operat-
ing room of the hospital will be fitted
up with proscenium boxes, and peo-
pie will dress for an important
operation as they do now for an
opera, and after it is over, all 90 to
late supper at the cafe and talk
over the interesting points of the en-
tertaiument. These performances
will be more interesting and less
bloody than prize fights, and those
who watch the knocked-out prize
fighter gradually regain conscious
ness, or die inside the ropes, will see
much to enjoy in the appearance of
the patient under the anisthetic, as
the brave doctors are carving him
from Genesis to Revelation in search
of something they do not know the
name of. in places they have never
visited before. The time may come,
in the advancement of surgical skill,
when person about to be operated
upon for appendicitis will issue in
vitatiops TO visit the hospital at a
certain hour and witness what to the
patient is the most interesting period
of his life, and the guests may make
bets of cigars and gloves whether the
doctors find it or not, or if they do
find it, whether the patient will re-
cover. There is a chance for spec
tacular effect in these possibilities,
and if it becomes fashionable to have
audiences to witness the perform
ances of doctors, it will be found that
they will pose as actors, and watch
the audience when not actually en-
gagged in carving the patients. Let
the good work 60 on.