Modern Surgery For The Battlefield – Saving Many Lives

1916

Saving The Soldier – Wonderful Accomplishments of Modern Surgery

German System So Perfect That Desperately Wounded Men Are Restored to Service in Comparatively Short Time

With their characteristic thoroughness the Germans have set themselves to the task of saving every wounded soldier sent back from the front who is not beyond their aid. They are accomplishing wonderful results and thousands of disabled soldiers are soon restored to health and sent back to the firing line, who might have perished miserably were it not for the scientific management of German hospital work.

There is no neglect of the wounded. From the time a man is hurt on the battlefield until he is installed in a hospital, perhaps far away from the scene of his injury, all that could possibly be done for him before he reaches the hospital has been accomplished by skilled hands and when he reaches his destination competent surgeons, who specialize in the kind of wound he has received, begin the final work of healing.

Instead of being the most common operation Ii war surgery, amputation is not practiced now, except as the last resort. Antiseptic treatment has so minimized the danger of infection that the most desperately wounded soldiers are saved and dismissed from the hospitals with, their full complement of limbs.

Not only are German surgeons doing splendid work, but American, French, English and Austrian surgeons are everyday performing remarkable operations. Recently an operation was performed by Prof. Albert Tietze on a soldier who had a serious wound in his head. After a large fragment of shell had been removed the X-rays showed that a small piece of shell remained. Professor Tietze said this particle could not safely be left in the skull because it might become dislodged in future years and cause instant death.

It was suggested that a magnet be used to draw out the splinter. There was no instrument of the sort available, but engineers of the telegraphic division soon made an electro-magnet. A motor, formerly used for running a threshing machine, and a dynamo were requisitioned. The physician took an iron wand, highly polished, and connected it with a coil. The wand was inserted in the soldier's skull and the fragment of shell was easily withdrawn as it clung to the end of the iron.