Bisbee daily review., 1917-05-12
CARREL'S SURGERY ON BATTLES FRONT
 STARTLES WORLD
Daily Count of Bacteria In Wound Permits Doctor To Tell Right To Hour Proper Time To Close It.
(By Review Leased Wire)


 covery that has rivaled Dr. Alexis Carrel's method of the treatment of septic wounds as the most notable ad dition to surgical science, according to a senior surgeon of the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly, near Paris, who has just returned to this country. "The French hospitals are slowly adopting the Carrel method" he said, "and in the American Ambu- lance Hospital we have been using it for several months with gratifying results which seem to show that pr. Carrel has proved his thesis.
 "The reduction of septic wound treatment to an almost mathematical basis is feature of the Carrel meth cd that suggests the fanciful thought of the possibility that the day may come when a surgeons work will in some results be like that of a train dispatcher. Having brought to him from day to day the microscopic count of the germs in a given wound, llt SUI StOu hSult "Ath preciseness the day on which the wound will be in shape to close com pletely. The two-hourly irrigation of the wound by the Dakin or other so- lution, is highly important feature of the Carrel method. but the most factor is the daily micro scopic count of the germs. These germs are taken from given areas of the wound, placed under a micro scope and counted. and from this count the progress of the healing is guaged. There are perhaps less germs today than yesterday, so many less tomorrow: and so the rate of the diminishing suppuration is estab- lished. The surgeon, almost without looking at the wound, can determine. when the count gets down to given number, that it is safe to close it.
 "The American Ambulance Hospi- tai is the best single thing which America can do for France" he said. "The hospital has been at all times since its establishment two years ago one of the best hospitals in the world; it enjoys the confidence of the French Sanitary Service to such a degree that it ordinarily receives only the most difficult cases. The most severe shell wounds are constantly There are scores of young American surgeons who, from time to time serving at the hospital, have become familiar with these phases of surgery. They may rarely have occasion to use this knowledge in their ordinary civilian practice at home, but should the United States be at war within the next generation it will find that many of it's surgeons in civilian practice are acquainted with every sort of wound now known in warfare. At the hospital, further, there has been constant cooperation between the surgeons and dentists. An ordinary operation is that or grating bone cut from the tibia or shin-bone into the lower jaw. l have seen young soldiers so frightfully wounded in the face that had they been my sons I should have almost preferred they should have died, but it is not for the surgeons to let the spark of life be extinguished through neglect of surgical science.
 "The appreciation, gratitude and entire simplicity of the wounded French soldier is something that gets one absolutely. l have never seen the slightest resemblance to anything that could be called bravado in his makeup. The American sur geons feel that they cannot be kind enough to the soldiers.
 "All through France the efficiency of the American Ambulance Hospl- tai has become known, and distln- guished surgical men are daily visi- tors. They come not only from the French hospitals, but from all Of the allied aud neutral countries, exam ming with particular interest the many forms of special apparatus which the Americans have developed for the management of factured ex- tremities. These devics have been originated and improved upon largely by the younger members of our surgl- cal staff. When young surgeon comes to us from America for ser vice at the hospital he is assigned to a ward with request that he i'm prove the apparatus-and it is rarely that he fails to do so. It has been wonderful for the older men to see how readily and successfully the younger men have taken up this work
 "There are probably 1900 wounded soldiers under the American Ambu- lance surgeons at this moment. There are 575 in the hospital at Neuilly' and a thousand and more in auXil- liary hospitals under our care. AL Neuilly the entire hospital force, in cluding the orderlies and other at tendants. numbers some 800 men and women. Among them we have many of birth and education serving as or derlies. An Episcopal clergyman Of Philadelphia did this work all sum mer and an American college profes- scr who came in asking simply Tor