The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-14
.FEATs OF THE SURGEON
MUCH OF THE BODYONE MAYLOSE
 AND STYLE LIFE.
Practically No Organ of Which Man May Not Now Spare Pnrt-Creation of New Bone and Fleshy Structure.

May Not Now Spare n Pnrt-CreattoI
 of New Bone and FIeshy Structure.
 The parts of one's body one may loss
 and still survive are steadily increas-
 ing, thanks to the progress fo surgery
 though the surgeon is unable to tell the
 layman the exact point where a living
 body would lose it's desirability as a
 human tenement. That, the surgeon
 says, varies with the person, life mean-
 ing more to one than to another. Bret
 Harte's story of the unfortunate young
 woman who remiined faithful to her
 young man" through a long series of Iaccidents involving the loss of various
 members, and her agonized question as
 to how long she ought to remain cling
 ing to the hapiess youth, amused peo-
 pie who read it a quarter of century
 ago; but if the young man had lived
 in these days he could have made a
 very respectable appearance at her side
 and the question of matrimony might
 have been less doubtful for his lady
 love. For nowadays the human body may be variously cut down, built up,
 and substituted. Mans framework is
 truly a mass of connecting tissues,
 which separately and intrinsically have
 no vital function, but merely serve to
 hold the vital and other organs fixedly
 in place and in their proper relations
 to each other. There are practically
 none of his organs from which he can-
 not spare a part to the surgeons knife
 -and many he can spare entirely and
 Fo,,fr 1>1 ;r I,o+ i- ,nt
 Just as well off without part of his body
 as with it-he is more perfect, anatomi-
 cally, with his full possessions, and his
 functions more perfect physiologically
 -but his special blessing is that he has
 discovered himself to be endowed by nature with the ability to adjust him.
 self to many losses. It is the surgeons
 power and privilege inteligently and
 scientifically to weigh the patients
 condition in the light of experience and 1t is distinctly the role of the mod
 ern, progressive, and conservative sur geon, working in the best interests of humanity, to conserve every part rath- CT than needlessly sacrifice any portion of the human anatomy.
 Viewed by the surgeon, the body as a whole, is an aggregation of tissues, which may be grouped into three class ses: Connective tissues, which connect, or bind together, it's various supporting parts into framework; organs, which occupy various positions and perform various functions while held in fixed relationships in this supporting frame work; and external covering of skin and internal lining of membrane
 In order of importance to life come first, those nerve centers in the upper portion of the spinal cord, which con- trol the action of the heart and lungs, whose destruction is followed by inn mediate death; secondly, the viscera, or organs, death following the destruction of the organ with rapidity depndent l upon the importance of the special or gan involved (the three most important l organs being the brain, heart and | lungs1 thirdly, the connective tissues, | which rank lowest in the scale of i'm portance to life. The only bones which l cannot now be removed are some of | those of the head and spine. Not only | may any of the other bones of the | body be removed. but in very many | cases, where the bone is removed by | taking it out of its fbrous covering, after cutting through the over-lying the bone is reproduced by deposit of new bone from it's periosteal covering, the later forming a mold in which the new bone is shaped into a useful form.
 One of the most brilliant fields of modern conservative surgery involves treatment of diseased joints. Formerly many limb whose joint was badly in- jured was sacrificed by amputation of the entire limb; now the injured or dis eased joint is simply cut out, the sawn ends of the bones put into a splint 1 nearly in contact, and a new joint formed by subsequently practicing at the site of the original oint A joint is often reproduced capa- ble of almost the full range of move- ment; at the knee alone a movable Joint is not used, as it would hardly support the weight of the body. Rarely Is 1t necessary to remove an entire though in many instances it nay be done. The same is true of ar .eries, though it may be safely done, if t be an artery of secondary import ance An upper eXtermity may not ,nly be romeved at the shoulder joint, put the colarbone and shouderblade md the muscles covering these bones nav all be removed along with it. Low 1T extremities may be removed at the lipjoint, constituting the largest and most important pure amputation of the ,ody. Ones scalp may be entirely removed, , contrary to the usual impression, de- lived from tales of Indians. Then one l nay lose both eyes, both ears, the nose, ips, teeth, upper and lower jaw, palate, | ongue, tonsils, salivary glands, larynx, { me lung, stomach, gall, bladder, spleen, ( Lppendix, one kidney, one ureter and nale and female generative organs. All I hese structures are also removable in f ,art: nowadays, too, one may lose very ( arge quantities of blood, it's place be- f ne speedily and satisfactorily replaced l " siphoning into the system up to f everal quarts of tepid boiled water, E weakly impregnated with salt. I If the surgeon thinks it best, one may I ave one of his limbs shortened (espe- r ially in the lower eXtermities, where f hey may be of different lengths) by re- I moving a cross section of the bone or r ones of the longer part sufficient in f xtent to equal the amount necessary r O correspond with the shorter limb r ,here are other things the surgeon will r Q for you. As many as eight or nine r consecutive ribs may be successfully | ' a,,,ouad from one side: cOmDaraIlNelV