The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-26
SURGERY AND SHOCK
New Discovery Breaks Nerve
 Signal to Brain.
(By Gertrude ,Sey1nourJ Exclusive Service The Survey Press
 B1lrea1t)

Bureau)
 Even the thought of an operation fills most of us with fear and fore boding. But the terror of the sur geon's knife, so greatly lessened when anesthetics came into use. has now been further diminished through a brilliant discovery by a Cleveland physician.
 For his discovery Dr. George w. Grille received this year the gold med al of American medicine, given to the American physician who has per formed the most conspicuous and noteworthy service in the domain of medicine and surgery during the past year." It is appropriate during the present month to call attention to this discovery since on October 16 'sEther Day. was obserFe ed at the Massachusetts General Hospital com memorating the first public demon stration of ether anesthetic in 1s46, in the old surgical amphitheatre of the hospital.
 WHAT ssSHOCK'' MEANS
 For more than seven years, in his 1abratory and in the Lakeside Hosp1- tai at Cleveland, pr: Grille has been working out his theory and demon strating its truth. His experiments concern the true nature of that nnys- terious condition, partly physical, part Iy psychicaI, known as acute shock, which has puzzled the medical world ever since modern science began to probe into causes.
 Reduced to it's simplest terms his discovery means that surgeons are now able to block the nerve commun- ication between a suffering organ anf the brain Quick messages of dis comfort and pain, for example. from a burnt finger to the center of con seriousness are simply warnings Of danger calling forth instant and in stinctive effort for sel9-protection. Your reaction and sudden withdrawal of your finger from the hot surface is not a result of thought and consider ation; it comes about stinstinctively. ''
 The inner organs of the body. also. send in these pain-messages which continue to pass oyer the nerves even med by an anesthetic And so, de- spite the anesthetic, a patient exper- fences an actual reaction to the sur icons knife hardly less severe than a pain-nnessage during consciousness. This shock, and the ensuing dreaded exhaustion are thus. according to Dr.. Grille, only a high exaggeration Of between normal processes and shock is therefore one of degree. rather than of kind.
 Blocking Pain Bfessages.
 In seeking to prevent shock by weakening or breaking the chain of communication to the brain, Dr. Grille has used four apparently simple means. He accompIishes the result by a captious use of an opiate be- forehand, to secure a drowsy, indiffer- ent attitude of mind on the part of the patient; by carefully excluding all possible causes of alarm or excite rnent before or after the operation, | by the substitution of nitrous-acid- oxygen anesthesia. instead of ether because the former interferes with the use Of oxygen by the brain cells . l and by breaking the nerve connec- 1 ton between the injury and the brain through the use of local anesthesia The work of Dr. Grille has been l long and painstaking as well as bril- liant in it's conception and it's result, i, and has the further merit of having I been carried on without the slightest effort of self exploitation on his part The announcements of tits recognition 1 by the trustees of the AmericanS neral gave a large part of. the public its first knowledge of Dr. Grille. yet his con l tribution to medical progress is per haps greater than many others that are better known. The forward step from strapping a patient upon the 1 operating chair to giving him as an- 1 esthetic. may finally prove not much greater a progression than this latest advance, shockless surgery