The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-21
SURGEONS DECLINE
 70 OPERATE UPON ABNORMAL INFANT
Case Tn Bridgeport Revealed In Medical Publication Is of
 Timely, Interest.

Reports of Drs.N T. Long Ellis and B. B. Finkelstone in the current issue
 of the Journal of the Medical Asso-
 citation upon case of esophago- tracheal fstuIa at St. Vincent's hos pitaI in Bridgeport discloses a case similar to that Of the BoIinger boy in Chicago in which no attempt was made to operate in the hope of saving life.
 Though the name of the child and it's mother is necessarily withheld from the public by the hospital and physicianS through professional con- hdence and the fact that the patients were privately confined in the hos pital, the report which is but partly printed in these columns will be most interesting from it's thoroughness to local physicians.
 The facts as ascertained lay The Farmer are these: During September a woman was admitted to St. Vim cents. A male child was born to her which, taking nourishment in the mouth, at once choked and seemed to become asphyxfated. An attempt to relive~the congestion was made after conference of Drs. Ellis. F. L. Day and Finke1stone, by means of a probe passed through the mouth and nose. No x-ray was taken but at the in stance of pr. Ellis, who reported hay ing seen a similar case last year, diag- nosed of 'fstricture of the esophagus'', was made. With a temperature of 1O2 the child died the fifth day from hamilton and broncho-pneu- monia.
 In the report of the case to the Journal of the Medical ssociation, it is said:
 ..No operation was tried because +O Too rrF1 as milk introduced into the stomach is apt to be discharged into the trachea * #''A
 pr. Day said: "This was a con genital case and there was no hope that operation would save the child. To have operated would have been fatal and therefore the child was permitted to die a, natural death.''
 tt1t would appear from the necropsy of the child that the osephagus ended in a blind pouch at the fifth trachea4 ring, thereby preventing food from reaching the stomach.''
 Several physicians in this city indi- cated~ today that the only hope of saw ing the child would have been to feed directly into the stomach through an incision made by a knife. If the food thus introduced had not risen into the bronchia and caused death by pneu- monia and suffocation, sufficient strength might have been gained by the patient to permit of an opera ton upon the throat which would have been most tAdeHcate.
 The case was that of Dr. Day. with Drs. Ellis and F'inkelstone being call ed into consultation.
 Dr. Finkelstone said today: There was no hope for the child from the sta1t and we decided not to attempt any operation.
 -Dr T11liS said. ssTHbis iS one of those cases on which no one has yet been able to do any operating. To aid the patient 8 surgeon would have to op- crate in close proximity to the heart and take away portion of rib. The child was so weak that it was not thought best to make the attempt Possibly, surgery/in time to come win fore some solution to such cases, as the Rockefeller Institute in New York has been studying such conditions, but there seems no hope for a child born in this manner at this tirne.'' 2