Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1917-08-04
Remaking of the Eye Region
One of the Wonders
Performed.
OPERATE while GUNS ROAR
handle Patients With Goodness and
Rapidity Under Constant Menace
of Death--Wounded Loud in
Praises of Surgeons.
BY C. r. BERTELLI.

FhriS.-lne femaKlnS or the eyI
regiOn through the transportation O
part Of the mucous membrane and tn,
grating of eyelids and lashes are
among the mawels of plastic surgery
accomplished In France during the
war by Or, Louis BOrsch, the famous
American oculist, who, since August
1914, has been chief ophthalmlc sur
geon at the huge Grand Palais Mill
larry hospital in Paris.
Doctor Borsch has just returned
from a trip to the trenches and field
hospitals, which he made at the re-
quest of the department of health for
she purpose of advising as to the pos
Ability of improving existing methods
III treating wounds of the eye and
saving the vision of the thousands of
soldiers who in this latter phase of
the war are suffering from such injur-
lea.
Three years of constant daily ex-
Derience In the treatment of eye
wounds at the Grand Palais," said
Doctor B0rsch on his return, "has en-
aDied me to witness very consider
able Improvement in the methods en-
ployed, and very gratifying results are
now being obtained. If we could have
taken up our task In 1914 with the
benefit of the experience we have
saaace acquired, our results would GER
sniniy have been more than 100 per
cent better.
Under Menace of Death.
THE one great lesson we have
learned Is that our chances of oper-
ating successfully In cases Of eye
wounds are enormously increased
when patients are brought to us i'm
mediately after they have received
their wounds. The same remark, of
course, applies to all wounds,
How well the heads of the French
medical service realize this will be
understood when | say that during
my Champagne trip / found many
eases in which the wounded had been
Brought from the trenches to the
heid hospitals, washed and operated !
Rpon. with all dressings completed,
within four hours of their receiving
their injuries. The surgeons and
nurses work under the constant men
ace of death. myself saw thuln
working in frst-aid dugouts and In
Ihe hospitals just behind the lines
amidst never-ending showers of big
Sfselis, yet they handle their patients
win GOODNESS, rapldity and skill
which cannot be surpassed In the
operating theater of a Paris hospital.
The wounded are unanimous in
heir praise of the treatment they
receive, and so thorough and efficient
II that | do not think 1t possible
o improve upon the work of the
Sesd hospitals that we inspected We
aw many wounded with severe frac-
Hres OF the thighs and legs who ;
we're walking about the wards in a
pecial apparatus four days after
heir being wounded; these men as
ured me they had never suffered a |
loment's pain. {
we also saw many German wound I
q, and there was not one of them who t
ID not seem pleased to be a prisoner
French hands. They are treated
18th precisely the same care and de-
otion MS the French wounded, whose S
ards they share, and no distinction i
'hateyer Is made. [
dangerous eye wounds, that in /
leir treatment call for nerves of t
'eel in the surgeon and a hand that /