The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-09-23

LOndon.-The marvellous progress
that has been made In recent times In
surgical science is most impressively
revealed by a journey to some of the
larger military hospitals, made posi-
BILE through the courtesy Of Sir Alfred
Keogh, director general of the army
medical service.
In all the hospitals what the medical
staff set above all Is conservative sur
gery-that is to say, the saving OF
limbs in order that the patients may
remain useful members of the COM
munity. Thus, at the Herbert hospital,
. at Shooters Hill, there have been
since the beginning of the war from
three to four thousand operations, and
Colonel Simpson, the officer in charge,
declared that he did not believe there
had been in all more than % primary
amputations.
The impression left by a tour of
these hospitals upon the layman's mind
is that outsiders have nm utterly in
adequate idea of the debt they owe
to modern surgery at a time like the
present. Day by day the surgeons
are giving to the nation new men for
old. They have embarked upon a
great mission of hope among the ma
tons soldiers. They are doing more
than would have been credible twenty
years ago to rob war Of it's ultimate
horror.
Out of the hundreds of wonderful
cases brought to ones notice during
these visits it is only possible to de-
scribe a few that may be regarded as
typical of this trade of mending sol
diers. Take first the new nerve sur
gerry. Here is a man with a bullet
hole near his collar bone which sew
cred the nerve controlling the muscles
of the wrist. The result was wrist
drop and n hand which until quite re
Gently would have been regarded as
incurably useless. The two ends o.
the severed nerve have been freed
from what had already become NJ
more than n scar, they have been re
united and there is every prospect tina
in less than a year the hand will b'
almost rs good as ever.
"As simple as tying up the two end
of a cut telephone wire," says the sur
geon who operated.
Amazing Nerve Cases.
There are more remarkable nerv,
cases still. A man had part of tn,
fleshy portion of his arm shot away
carrying with 1t four inches of tn,
nerve necessary to control the han,
movements. The surgeon rang up sew
eral hospitals on the telephone till h
heard of what he wanted, the ampu
tation that afternoon of q healthy limt
The limb happened to be a leg, an
it was amputated In the afternoon. N
sooner was 1t cut off than four or fv
inches IF practically living nerve wer
removed from the calf, placed in
saline bath and rushed by taxi to tn
other hospital. Here the patient wa
already under an anesthetic. TIL
wound in his arm was opened with
lancet, the ends of the indispensable
nerve quickly found and the circui
re-established, as it were, by means o
the first patients four inches of fila
ment. Today the nan is in a fair wa
of regaining the full use of his hand.
Bone surgery on rather similar line
is more familiar, but hardly less SUI
prising when you meet and talk to
man who converses with the aid of
lower jaw part of which was only
few weeks ago part of his right LEI
1t was mended with two and one-hal
inches of one of his shin bones. TIL
shin has quite healed, and the hol
will be completely filed with new bon
before long, so accommodating is ne
ture when treated with knowledge.
Another patient is perfectly happ
and prosperous with three inches @
the ibula of his left leg neatly mol
tised in the humerus of his right arm
He, too, will finally suffer no loss G
bone whatever. The variants of sue
operations are endless and only Unite