Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-17

Copyright by Reservedl
q CIENCE has progressed that surgeons may
y entirely make over man so far as his personal
Nappearance and moral character concerned
AIgiye him a eye where one has been lost, and
even eliminate a stomach, and improve the
man and his appetite and digestion. recent case to
attract attention that Of William B. Smith, of
Brooklyn, whose stomach removed on September
8 to prevent death from and who twenty days
later was ready for work. declaring that he felt bet
than at any time in the last five years After the
operation he gained weight at the average of half
pound day.
Surgery is fast developing a potent factor in the
study and of crime, and what regarded not
long ago as fantastic conception of the novelist is
now authenticated fact.
Restoration of a blind patients eyesight by
surgical operation which involved the grating of the
eye of rabbit to the optic nerve of the man under
treatment is the remarkable surgical feat performed
by DR.. Henry r. Lesser, of New York. Losing the
sight of his right eye at nine years of through
an attack of measles, the patient abandoned all hope
of q The eye was irrigated, cocaineized and a
disk cut from the cornea and In its place affixed
a disk from the eye of eight-months-old rabbit.
After three months the vision so improved that
the patient could count fingers and get about unaded
He has learned colors again and at the age of twenty
five is restored to usefulness which disease impaired
for nearly decades.
Let those who have watched the Hindoo masters
of magic cut a human body in half and then reunite
the parts pause for moment to consider series of
cases lifted from the days work of score of eminent
surgeons cases of that have the added value
of actualty.
Four-year-old Mary Lascomb, of Upland, Pa, called
by nurses who attended her the bravest girl in the
world" left hospital the other day completely cured
of double congenital dislocation of the hip On No
vember "a, 1907 when she operated on. she
seemed hopeessly deformed. To-day she is of per-
fectly normal physique.
Arthur Meyer badly dsfgured by the entire abb
sence of a nose and often seriously hampered in OBJ
tanning work because of his unsightiness, dis
charged from Philadelphia hospital a few weeks ago
with nose made from his flesh good as the
one he had originally In addition there not
trace of suggest the surgical operation that
brought it about.
Martha Fordney, of Atlanta Ga. to-day has
tirSr new lower jawbone filing the cavity that
stet months from just below ear to the centre
Of the n The surgeons knife and the ability of the
human NY when assisted to replace its parts gave
it to her.
NJ. Constant LIE B. Cromier, Of Paris, sat be-
fore and fingered his slken, curling eyeashes,
which his money and willingness to stand pain had
obtained for him from noted French surgeon in the
Boulevard Haussmann. Each hair had been inserted
singly into the lid with needle and had taken root
he was anaeStnetlZeu locally during the operation
Afterward the hairs had been curled with tiny iron
hardly larger than a knitting needle. M. Cromer,
from man of most unusual and uncanny appearance,
has become more than passing fair and at least
normal.
Surely these widely different cases, each of
which is indicative of the scope of the surgery
which to-day permits the virtual remaking of man.
The old rhinoplastic surgery, which has thousands
Of triumphs its credit is being suppanted by what
\ merely can be termed 1.-The surgery" for want
of name on which the profession is agreed If one
tn IFS
me will be obliged realize that it Is largely the out
growth of a better knowledge on the part of opera
tors of the human bodys reproductive possibilities,
more daring on the part Of the surgeon and to the
successful outcome of animal and human expert
ments.
No matter how nervous the word experiment"
makes one feel when mentioned in connection with
surgical operations performed to outwt death, emil
nent surgeons have seldom been other than frank
though possibly not to the patients themselves-in
admitting that their efforts were often experimental
1t is fortunate in considering series of recent
operations that have under my observation that
the majority of patients have been poor, often with
mo money resources and quite often removed from