Omaha daily bee., 1915-11-13
Surgery in
the War
By Woods Hutchinson, A. NJ, NJ. d.

This war has been as barren o. any
thing new and interesting in surgery as
in everything else. Simply dreary waste
of mud and blood and slaughter. Man
has reverted three-quarters of million
years at one sweep. back to the blood
sucking, burrowing vermin, half ferret,
half hedgehog from which he originally
sprung.
There once was a thing called war. GER
tain selected spots OF which could be
spoken of without disgust and horror,
but now men burrow down into holes in
the ground to fight and are blown out
again by high explosives. SO that their
fragments are scattered all over the sur
rounding landscape.
When the great insanity first broke out
we fatuously congratulated ourselves
that this was going to be a humane war,
SO far as wounds and their handling was
concerned. The modern. small caliber,
high velocity bullet was the most humane
and gentle killer ever invented, we bur
bled The wounds drilled by It were as
small and clean as gimlet holes the heat
generated In the rifle barrel had made It
absolutely sterile. and the tissues on
each side of It were half pulped, half
followed unless a large artery was
pierced.
But the first couple of dozen bulletins
from the front shattered this rosy vision
into smithereens. First, came loud and
bitter complaints from both sides that
the other side was violating the rules of
war and using dum-dum bullets, making
tunnels the size OF a stovepipe through
| hO1N- Of ala
| holes.
The tunnels were there in painful
abundance, but when the whole thing
/ was sifted down the explanation appeared
/ to resolve itself into three parts. First,
that any private soldier that had a
Crouch on could convert the most re-
spectacle regulation bullet into a dunn
dunn in three minutes or less, simply by
ripping open the steel jacketing, or flat
tening the nose Of it on a stone, or filing
a couple Of hicks above the collar.
Second, that any pencil-shaped bullet
which happened to ncochet from the
ground. or glance from a tree, or strike
any other obstacle in it's flight, would
either become bent into a crescent or
turned sideways and strike broad-side
on. making the unfortunate target look
-
lit. or a blade OF a broken propeller.
Third, that IL the flying death hap
pened to strike or even scrape a bone,
or tough tendon, or sometimes, for no
reason whatever except its own sweet
will, 1t would either mushroom in the
most approved and horrible style. or
''jellify'' everything within half a yard
Of 1t. including lungs. liver, kidney, heart
or brains. II they happened to lie within
that radius. SO that the boasted Thu
manity'' of the modern high-speed bullet
was not what had been claimed, though
a considerable proportion of it's wounds
were clean, bloodless and autonishinzly
quick healing.
But the moment that the open air and
daylight fighting stopped and the muir
dering underground In the dark began,
another sinister influence came into play
which changed the face OF the game en-
trely, and swept half our notions of
modern military surgery onto the scrap
heap. This was the horrible preponder-
ance Of wounds made by shell, shrap-
mel and other artillery high explosives,
over all other sorts OF injuries.
For just plain dirty wounds which were
too big or the Tissues about them toe
III 1A0oea
that a special hot water irrigation dress.
: ing worked admirably. while for Others
exposure TO direct sunlight for several
hours each day was the best cure.
So that modern surgery Is now equip.
ped to deal with even the worst atrocities
4 Of this devirs brew called modern war
' providing that there Is enough patient
5 left TO keep the wounds together until
= they can be made to heal.
n OF those who are left sufficiently IN on,
: piece to be carried off the field at all
o only 3 per cent die. ninety-ss~ea out o.
every 100 recover OF those who ar,
e whole enough TO reach the base hospitals
n IS per cent recover. while there are Eng
4 fish and French home hospitals which
d have a record OF thousands Of WOUNDED
5 with loss OF only about four TO tn,
e thousand.
d Surgery IL doing its best 10 save MAJ
from his own blood-madness. but II 3
X only a melancholy sort OF pride which I
y can take In its achievement.