Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-04-05
BY ROBERT ID. POTTER,
Science Editor, The American Weekly


TRACKED ice anesthesia, chilling the body
cells and deadening them to pain, is the
@ newest weapon Of medical science In the
fight against mans Ills.
BY packing arms and legs in ice cubes and
ice water. chilling them down TO 40 degrees
Fahrenheit and not far above freezing doctors
now proving the worth Of what has come
10 be called protoplasm anesthesia.
Most ordinary drugs that dull pain. like
morphine, cocaine. novocaine and host OF
still newer ones, all owe their action TO bar
ricades which they set up. These nerve blocks
prevent the messages Of pain OF the body cells
from getting back to the brain along the
nerve pathways.
What is new and different about Ice cube
snesthesa is that it acts right on the proto-
plasm OF the body cells and makes them
nsensble 10 pain. No pain messages are sent
10 the brain because there is no pain in the
first place.
The new advance Is being hailed as a boon
TO any war wounds which affect the limbs.
Wherever there is ice and a bucket OF water
a military surgeon can now do an operation
on an arm or leg-even do amputation IL
needed-wthout any other anesthetc at hand.
The method would have been ideal for
Russian or German military surgeons working
the frigid Russian front If they had known
about 1t.
Not only is the ice anesthetic fine for the
patient by making the most severe operation
painless, but 1t has other great benefits. There
Is no blood TO bother the surgeon in his
work. There is hardly any risk Of infection.
There is no after effect of surgical shock.
This last point makes the new ice pack
surgery of great value whether it ever goes to
war or not for IL can do-and is doinga
major Job right now in operations on elderly
patients who have diabetes heart trouble.
Such older patients have always been bad
surgical risk for amputations.
Already many hospitals are adopting the
new cracked ice anesthetic. In New York.
City Hospital is showing the way with Drs.
Lyman Weeks Crossman, Wilfred Ruggiero
and Vincent Hurley performing scores of
emergency amputauons with high percent
age Of success.
What astonishes laymen-an and even visiting
surgeons too-is the almost complete absence
OF any serious effects from really major
operations on the arms or legs.
Typical preliminary to most major opera
tions, such as amputation where there is
danger of shock, is to put the patient on
fasting program for some hours before the
operation.
With the ice anesthesia the patient Is just
as apt to eat a hearty breakfast while his
leg, for example, is immersed in bucket Of
ice water to chill it. When the leg reaches
temperature down in the 40s the patient goes
to the operating room and may chat with the
nurse while the surgeon takes off the leg
behind a screen.
Then, the patient returns to the ward still
without pain and eats n full lunch as If
nothing had happened There is no pain, no
shock and but little risk Of infection.
In wartime it would be possible to chill
the leg or arm of a soldier in the same way
and transport him for days at time in
an ambulance as long as the limb was kept
refrigerated and bound with a tournquet
Credit for the new advance in anesthetics
goes to a New York physician, Dr. Frederick
Madison Allen, a diabetic specialist and pro-
fessor of internal medicine at New York
Polytechnic Hospital and Medical School
DR.. Allen became interested in cracked