The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1901-02-03
How the ~Inexpert
May Be Misled.

l spoke a moment ago OF the need OF n
''skillfui'' skigrapher. for ii must be remem-
bered that there may be the same differ
ence In the personal skill and. therefore. in
the reliability OF the results in skiaSraphy
as there IS in photography. A poor pho
tographer will get very different results
from Il skilfull one. even IL he uses precisely
the same quality OF plates and precisely the
same camera. Personal skill and exepri-
ence in the skiagrapher is. therefore. one
of the most important elemets in success.
1t must be remembered also that the "
rays in not a few cases may misiead us.
I have. personally. fractured a bone on ac-
count Of deformity. taken an X-ray picture
Immediately after the operation. the picture
showing not the slightest evidence of a
fracture. which I absolutely knew existed.
Moreover. foreign bodies found on the out
side OF the person may mislead US. as. for
example. the metal part OF suspenders. a
coin in ones pocket and such like. They
Sook in the picture as II they were inside
&rather than outside the body. and any ar
ticle the shape or size of which would not
reveal its nature might easily be mistaken
for a foreign body within the patient.
Therefore. in many cases only an expert can
determine precisely what the skiagraph
means. 1 especially mention this, because
there is a tendency at present to utilize
skiagraphs in court IN order TO convince the
Jury that such a picture is an evidence OF
malpractice. Such pictures always need an
Interpreter IN order TO Judge correctly of
their meaning. II is precisely as II the jury
were asked TO look through a microscope. L
have been myself accustomed TO use the mi
crosccpe for thirty years. but there are
many instances even yet in which I am
obliged TO ask a pathologist or bacteriolo-
gist what I really am looking at In the
microscope. While one may make a mis-
take Of small moment In some cases, yet IL
a mans life or liberty or purse is at the
mercy OF a fury which does not know how
to interpret q skiagraph and may. therefore,.
give q verdict which is precisely wrong
as Professor Lincoln. my old teacher OF
Latin. used to call many OF our TRANSACTIONS,
Il VIII be q very serious matter and lead to
gross injustice.
Another great Improvement IN our means
of caring for our surgical patient. IL the
establishment of hospitals all over the land.
These. happily. are not limited to our great
cities, but In every country town and not a
few large villages small but well-equipped
and well-managed hospitals have been es-
\Rblished, which have done incalculable
good. It Is not too much to say that every
city or town establishing such q hospital is
repaid a hundredfold.
The trained nurse has fortunately como to
stay. In fact, our antfseptio methods as
above described have made the trained
nurse indispensable. The old nurse who by
many clumsy experiments on her patients
had obtained a certain rule-of-thumb knowl-
edge of the care OF the sick can no longer
assist in a surgical operation or properly
care for any surgical patient. The modern
nurse must Of necessity be q well-educated,
well-trained woman knowing thoroughly
modern a~ntiseptio methods and on the alert
to observe every symptom Of Improvement
and every signal of danger.
without a well-trained nurse It Is impos-
sfble at the present day properly to care
for any serious surgical case and I gladly
bear witness to the intelligence, fidelity and
skill Of scores of nurses who have assisted
me and without whom i should have felt
as one blade OF q scissors without its fell !
low.