New-York tribune., 1911-11-19
Day May Soon Come When
One Diseased Organ Can
not Kill a Strong
Man, as Now.
BY 6. Elliot Flint.


A great pity-that an otherwise etr0rg'
vigorous man should die because e one
small defect Sould defective pert ce
replaced by sound tissue-what to-h 20
the race!-what saving Of prev 5 Ii, 3!
SO scientists have thought and h. laro d
to find some way of strengthe -Ig weak
spots that the whole might ike
Exercise. directed especially q; % Weak
portion. has been one method Ia has
accomplished much; yet, capac.. ~ de-
velopment being limited, this -" '."a
too often failed. SomethiAe a.. was
needed.
The advance Of surgery during he last
half century has been eXur "a 4"
Hearts terribly injured have been emoved
ratched. replaced. and their funcLo" com
pletely restored. Diseased or injured parts
even Of the brain have not infreluentN
teen cut out. with no serious consequences
10 the patient.
svrgery's boldest experiments, however
are I'm the transplanting Of tissue ana even
OF entire organs. The hope held out 20 US
in these latest experiments is the posi-
bity Of replacing inhrm or degeherateu
parts with healthy ones. The great trouoie
has been to obtain the particular parts de-
sired, but now cold storage when some
consider an evil as applied to food' has
solved this difficulty for surgeons. They
have found that living matter which mas
been taken from one human body may be
stored In an ice chest and kept until needed
for use IN an operation on another
Following this discovery the staff OF the
Johns Hopkins Hospital Instituted series
of experiments in the transportation OF AMI
NAL tissue In one experiment tissue from
deg. which had been preserved on Ice for
eight days grew successfully when grated
On the leg Of cat. In other experiments
material kept for fifty days attached itself
perfectly to another body. Altogether, In
sixty-two experiments on dogs the Johns
Hopkins physicians transplanted with sig
nal success various parts Of bodies from one
animal TO another. and 10 animals OF q
different kind
At first sight there seems TO be no rea-
son why healthy tissue from one animal
should not grow equally well on another.
There are difficulties however, the chief
being that different animals even of the
same species vary physiologically-that is
to say. in no two animals are the content
Of the blood and the structural groupings
OF the cells precisely alike.
This drawback. however, patient persist
ence on the part of the surgeon can over
come. through the inherent adaptability Of
all tissues to a changed environment AS
the bulk of a muscle becomes greater when
the amount of work demanded Of II In
creases so blood which mixes with other
blood Of different quality slowly modifes
the whole to uniformity, and, at the same
time as gradually rearranges foreign cells
into complete accordance with the rest
We are so familiar with the reserve power
Of repair possessed by the human economy
that we have ceased to wonder al 1t.
Wounds and lacerations heal and broken
bones unite, If their parts be placed and
held firmly together yet is this inherent
repair force in humans limited While the
loss OF a nail is made good by another
growing in its place, an arm or even
finger cannot be reproduced. So when ears,
fingers or toes have been torn OF cut of,
recourse must be had TO grating on the
raw surface like parts which have been
taken from other living bodies Of the same
kind
Human skin grating, or the placing OF
pieces Of foreign human skin on a wide
bleeding surface caused by extensive burns
or scalds. is now a familir phase of mod
ern surgery. quite IeCeHlIS lHe UOHe VI
lamb was substituted for a completely shat
tered bone in the lower leg of man, the
patient. after recovery. being able to walk
without limp. In another nice operation.
the cornea Of a rabbit, after 1t had been
delicately placed over. and had finally ad-
hered TO, human eye was found to per-
form its function even better than had the
diseased and opaque human cornea which
had previously been removed. Still. such
feats Of surgery are not much more won
derful than is the growing together of the
parts of broken bone; merely, In the case
OF lost parts, the missing portion is sup
piled. secured firmly IN the proper place,
and natures ordinary repair work does the
rest.
The most ambitious surgeons. however
have not remained satisfied with what they
now term petty grating" They declare