The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-09-23
MAGIC OF SURGICAL SCIENCE
IS MAKING new MEN OF old
Some Remarkable Instances Where Operations Have Practically
Rebuilt Vital and important Portions Of the Human Body
That Had Been Shot Away in the BatHes-"Gas
Gangrene' Is Surgeons Worst Enemy.

by the ingenuity and enterprise of
each surgeon.
Carpentry and Legs.
OF remarkable examples Of carpen-
try applied t o broken limbs most hos
pitfalls have two or three, If not more,
on hand. A young fellow was brought
into the hospital with one leg short
ened by five inches, owing to the ends
of the broken bone overlapping. He
seemed n hopeless cripple. The leg
was rebroken under an anesthetic. an
eighth of an inch cut off from each
side of the fracture so as to secure a
smooth joint, and q steel plate fastened
on with six screws, precisely as n
would mend the broken leg of a table.
The plate and screws will remain in
position as a permanent addition to
the soldiers anatomy, for steel will
not rust among the tissues. And the
man has a leg practically as long and
as straight as, and rather stronger
than, it was intended to be by nature.
Some of the most cruel wounds are
those in the jaw, but even here what
the skill and patience of the surgeon
have been able to do is wonderful. One
poor fellow who had been provided
with n new roof to his mouth was one
of the most cheerful of the patients.
His comic songs are the delight of the
ward. You cease to be amazed at any
height of human skill or human cour-
age after n few hours in any Of these
military hospitals. You know for GER
tain then that man is unconquerable.
Where the injury is to the upper
part of the face, resulting in, say, the
removal of the nose and one eye, magt-
cal results are being achieved in a
southwestern district hospital by the
provision of masks perfectly counter
feiting the lost section of the physiog-
nomy. Lieut.. Derwent Wood is the
inventor of the plan. With the help of
photographs of what a patient was like
before being wounded he will make a
false nose of silvered copper, artistic
ally painted to match the surrounding
complexion, which will so far defy de-
lection as to enable the owner to &c
out into the. world again without
shrinking and play his old part in the
affairs Of men.
A Remarkable Operation.
Here is another remarkable cast
Not long ago a wounded Guardsmar
was brought into the Queen Alexandrf
hospital at Millbank, suffering from {
%shrapnel wound. Examination under
the X-rays showed that q piece o
metal as large Is a halfpenny ant
much thicker had entered the breas
and lodged in the region of the heart
1t was, in fact, actually touching tn
heart and impeding its action. An OF
l Grafton was decided IN, and the SUI
geOn thrust his hand right into tn
opening and pulled out the piece o
metal, which is preserved as a sou
venir. There was a danger that dur
ing anesthesia the lungs would col
lapse, and therefore ether was pumped
into them to keep them distended
That gallant Guardsman is now GU
and about, and it is declared that h
will not feel the slightest i'll effect
from his strange experience.
IN InlS nOSpllul there IS ut pTeSeuI
: Serbian officer who was wounded II
his own country and brought to Eng
5 land for treatment. 1t was a case o
severe injury to the jaw. Lieut.. 81
Francis Farmer removed a piece o
bone about two and n half inches Ion.
| from the tibia of the patient, and
having carefully prepared a bed fl
{ which to place it, fixed it in the jaw
The leg is now healed and the patien
: can eat wonderfully well.
But this reftting and, as it were
rebuilding of citizens is not enough
They must first be snatched from tina
progressive process of destruction as
{ ISOLATED with the dreaded word sepsis
that creeping death of the tissue
. which is the surgeons most remorse
less enemy. And here again one en-
l counters the marvellous.
| In this wal the variety of sepsis tina