Imagination Aids Surgery

1895

How a Woman Was Cured of Lameness Which Did Not Exist.

"Imagination is not to be sneezed at," said a prominent surgeon the other day as his eyes followed the brisk movements of a middle aged woman who was passing.

"Three years ago," said he, "that woman came to one of the hospitals of the city and engaged a private room. She drove to the institution in a carriage and was carried to her bed on a stretcher. she insisted that one of her ankles was helpless, and that she could not walk. The house surgeon made an examination and could not discover that she had the slightest ailment. The next day the head surgeon looked over her carefully and came to the same conclusion. What is more, being a somewhat brusque and outspoken person, he said as much to her. At this she was very indignant and insisted upon keeping her bed. No amount of persuasion could induce her to make any effort to walk, and she insisted that her ankle was helpless and so sensitive that the slightest touch of her foot to the ground caused her the most acute pain.

"Finding all efforts to persuade her to do anything for herself fruitless, the surgical staff held a consultation and determined to humor her. Consequently the following day the woman was told that she was suffering from a serious ailment, and preparations for an operation were made with a great parade of nurses, instruments and the like. The patient was then placed under the influence of an anesthetic, and a slight incision was made over the ankle joint. This was merely superficial, although it was several inches in length. It was immediately sewed up, carefully bandaged and the patient removed to her bed, where she found herself when she recovered consciousness. After this she was subjected to the same care that would be given to the most serious cases for two weeks. The wound was dressed daily, the patient was enjoined to remain in one position, and her diet was carefully prescribed. At the end of this time the bandages were removed, the stitches taken out, and a few days later the woman walked out of the hospital as well as you see her today. There had never been the slightest thing the matter with her, but she thought there was, and the pretended operation satisfied her." — Rochester Democrat.

North Lovell

Maine, 1916

Bert Mason, Serrall Butters, Theodore McAlister, Leland Wilson and Howard Allen were home Saturday night and Sunday from the corn shop.

Mrs. Edna Allen and Miss Ruth Allen were Sunday guests at Ethel Wilson's.

Mrs. Louisa Wilberger is quite ill from indigestion and a nervous breakdown.

Mrs. Martena Richardson is making an extended visit with her brother, Willis McAlister.

Mr. A. B. Gracelon and family motored to Lewiston Saturday.

Irving Stanley and family of Number Four were Sunday guests at Willis Warren's.

S. W. Johnson and family of Center Lovell were Sunday guests at Fred Warren's.

Will Decker and wife of Bartlettboro called at Leonard Gammon's Sunday.

Curtis Bickford and wife of East Stoneham were guests at G. W. Adams' Sunday.

Mellen Eastman and family of Center Lovell were guests at Max Eastman's Sunday.

Mamie Harriman was operated on last Thursday at Norway. Last reports were that she stood the operation well and was getting along nicely. Her many friends and relatives of this place hope the operation will prove very successful. This is her fourth surgical operation in the last few years.

L. A. Fogg and wife went to Norway last week for a few days.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 2.

Braves Surgeon's Knife; Balks at Facing Altar

1920

NEW YORK, N. Y., Jan. 1. — Dr. William Gray Vermilye, 62, a former naval surgeon, did not flinch when he was called upon to face the surgeon's knife in a Brooklyn hospital. But when it came to leading Miss Ruth M. Keeney, 35, to the altar he balked. In fact, he disappeared on the day he was to have been married and sought the hospital to have a minor operation performed rather than face the preacher with his intended bride.

Dr. Vermilye was found by Miss Keeney, who was on the verge of collapse. She carried a bouquet for him and sent to his room a request that he see her.

He refused.

Miss Keeney fainted.

Interviewers were unable to get a statement out of the physician for quite awhile. Finally he issued a prepared statement to the effect that on his return from South America recently he was met with an invitation to his own wedding. He denied he was hiding from any one, but intimated that he just didn't have the nerve to get married after living in single blessedness so long.

A Use for Grasshoppers

Editorial observations, 1910

A Colorado farmer has gathered 125 bushels of grasshoppers, which he intends to dry, so that they may be used for chicken feed next winter. Since a use has been found for grasshoppers we may expect future crops of them to be failures.

A new comet has been discovered. There ought to be a stop put to this. If the former one brought about all the trouble which has been going on the earth since, we can spare any more of these heavenly mischief makers for some time to come. And those who are looking for trouble and read their answer in the stars should be legally enjoined, at least until the world has had time to catch its breath.

Look over your small change carefully; there are several counterfeit five-dollar bills in circulation.

Owing to the fact that their wives are away for the summer a good many men are almost forgetting how to button waists up the back.

Cincinnati surgeons are to amputate a citizen's six-inch nose. To use a Pittsburgh word, the gentleman really is "nobby."

No picnic can claim to have been destroyed by rainy weather this season.

Cleared by a Thumb

1910

The guilt or innocence of an army veterinary surgeon, accused by a soldier of assault at Pontivy, France, rested on the question whether or not the accused man sucked his thumb after the soldier had accidentally inflicted a slight wound.

While M. Berland, the veterinary surgeon, was performing an operation on a horse's leg at the barracks of the Second cavalry regiment at Pontivy, a trooper who was holding down the horse inadvertently scratched M. Berland's hand, in consequence of the horse moving suddenly. The surgeon examined the scratch, and then administered a sound box on the ear to the soldier, who received the punishment in silence, but later complained to an officer.

The court-martial spent considerable time in ascertaining whether the choleric surgeon struck the trooper suddenly, without reflection, as a person might do after having a corn trodden on, or whether the blow was given deliberately, after Mr. Berland had time to reflect. On learning that M. Berland did not stop to suck the wounded thumb before boxing the trooper's ear, the court decided that the blow was not premeditated and he was acquitted.

Coon Hunter Kills Big Eagle

1915

Bird Shot Measures Seven Feet From Wing Tip to Tip

ST. LOUIS, Mo., Dec. 16. — An eagle, measuring seven feet from tip to tip of its wings, was shot by Eugene Gertges, when the latter was coon hunting in the vicinity of Friedens' Church, six miles west of St. Charles. The eagle was perched in a tree and the hunter mistook it for a hawk.



Man Operated On 131 Times

Patient at St. Louis Hospital Is Cheerful at All Times

ST. LOUIS, Mo., Dec. 16. — Harry Smyth, 42 years old, is one of the most cheerful patients at the city hospital here, despite the fact that 131 surgical operations have been performed on him. Tuberculosis of the bones have made these operations necessary. Since childhood Smyth has passed most of his time in hospitals.

To occupy his time Smyth took up sewing and crocheting and he is now an expert with the needle. He is always good-natured.

Makes Nose From Soup Bone

1915

Girl's Facial Deformity Corrected by Modern Surgery

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., Dec. 16. — An artificial nose which compares favorably with the natural variety, has been made from a soup bone by the surgeons of the Samaritan Hospital.

A few years ago a girl baby was born without a nose and her parents took her out but little in public owing to the attention that the deformity attracted. Surgeons at the hospital decided that the girl could have a nose like other persons.

Dr. W. W. Babcock carved a nose along Greek lines from a beef soup bone. An incision was made in the nasal flesh and the bone securely fastened in position. Then the flesh was stretched so it covered the bone, nostrils were punched in the flesh, and the child is now able to breathe freely thru the artificial member.



Make Nose Out of Man's Rib

Iowan's Nasal Organ Is Restored by an Unique Operation

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, Dec. 16. — Chester Davenport, son of former Sheriff W. C. Davenport of Sioux City, has had a new nose made from a piece of his ninth rib, and the dual operation, which has just been performed, promises to be successful. A three inch section of his rib was removed and used to form a new nasal arch, taking the place of the nose bone that was removed three years ago.

Davenport lost the original nasal bone as a result of injuries suffered in a football game. His nose was broken and an abscess formed, necessitating the removal of the whole nasal bone.

Balky Horse Starts a Blaze

1920

Kicks Off Hot Shoe, Sets Blacksmith Shop on Fire

SANDFORDS MILLS, N. Y., Feb. 26. — Upon his arrival in town, Abner Gesner, who lives near here, led his horse into W. A. Wirts' blacksmith shop to be shod. Mr. Wirts prepared the horse's feet without trouble. When he raised the left hind foot of the horse it resented having the red hot shoe applied to its hoof and began jumping and kicking. The horse kicked the hot shoe into a pile of shavings at the end of the shop, igniting them. Wirts had to call out the village fire companies to extinguish the flames.


Blind Coroner Enters Vaudeville

ATLANTA, Ga., Feb. 26. — Paul Donchoo, Atlanta's widely-known blind coroner, has gone into vaudeville. Besides being a coroner and a lawyer, Donchoo is an accomplished musician.


Take 585 Gallstones From Man

HAZLETON, Pa., Feb. 26 — Five hundred and eight-five gallstones were removed in an operation from John Koda, at this place. The man felt much relieved after the operation.


At 91 He is a Movie Fan

CALDwELL., N. J., Feb. 26. — Augustus Bogert at his home in Hanford place, Caldwell, passed the 91st anniversary of his birth. Mr. Bogert was born in New York. He is a movie fan.

Editorial Remarks — "The Balmy Days of January"

1911

Next June we all may long for the balmy days of January.

Possibly the pet in the cat show would enjoy more keenly life in the alley.

Some people can find a typographical error who never find an idea of their own.

We have yet to discover an egg that has been improved by the cold storage treatment.

"Gaseous imbecility" has taken its place in the hall of fame beside "Innocuous desuetude."

Higher education, too, has its dangers. An Illinois girl started for college, but got married on the way.

Chicago is to have grand opera in English next season. If Chief Steward has his way it will also have it in clothing.

In the Boston high schools 3,000 girls are taking the commercial course. The boys will have to go west or south.

A Denver surgeon was stricken with appendicitis while operating on a patient for that disease. Maybe it is catching, after all.

That Jersey architect who failed to provide a stairway for a new schoolhouse must have realized that this is the age of aviation.

Three and a half billions was the value of the foreign trade of the United States last year. Pretty big country this, isn't it?

Russia affords a big market for American typewriters. To judge from the cartoons we see, Russia is not a big market for American safety razors.

Doctor Sews Up Gash In Heart

Printed Jan. 1908

Negro Injured During Brawl, Subject of Remarkable Operation

New York. — A few days ago the remarkable feat of sewing up a cut in a man's heart was successfully performed by two surgeons, Drs. Blake and Dwight, at Roosevelt hospital. The patient, William Johnson, a negro about 35 years old, is still in the hospital, ill with pneumonia, but, so far as his heart is concerned, he is all right. It has healed completely.

Johnson was stabbed in the course of a saloon row with a long thin knife, which severed the fourth rib two inches to the left of the mid line, and entered the heart. He left the scene of the stabbing without telling anyone of it, and strolled about the streets for three quarters of an hour. The wound appeared to be a slight one, and, as it was not bleeding, externally at least, Johnson did not worry about it.

By and by, however, he began to feel drowsy, and sat down on the curb and put his head in his hands. Here an acquaintance found him, drew from him the fact that he had been stabbed, and telephoned for an ambulance, which carried him to Roosevelt hospital.

Dr. Dwight, the house surgeon, diagnosed the case, and at once telephoned Dr. Joseph A. Blake. Within an hour and a half after the stabbing Johnson was on the operating table. Dr. Blake performed the operation with Dr. Dwight assisting.

First the surgeons made an incision along the upper border of the third rib, cutting from the sternum outward to the nipple line, thence down to the lower border of the fifth rib, thence inward to the sternum again, along the lower border of that rib.

This cut was deepened to the ribs, and then the third and fifth ribs were severed at the nipple line, the fourth having been cut through by the weapon that caused the wound. The operation to this point had resulted in the cutting of a sort of a trap door, which was easily raised, and turned back over the sternum with the costal cartilage as a hinge.

When the trap door was lifted and the pleura exposed, the left lung collapsed, and a pint of blood was found in the pleural cavity. It was found that the lung itself was not injured, but a small wound was discovered in the pericardium, or shell which incases the heart, from which the blood was running. The pericardium was then opened, and the heart itself exposed. This exposure of the heart showed the exact nature of the wound.

In the right ventricle, close to the anterior coronary artery, there was a wound in the heart about one half an inch in length, from which, at every contraction or beat of the heart, a little stream of blood spurted to a height of four inches. Examination showed that the wound extended to the central cavity of the heart.

The heart was grasped in the hand to steady it, just as one would clasp a fluttering bird in order to examine a wound. Four stitches with silk thread were then taken in the heart, it being necessary to sew entirely through the wall of the heart for that purpose. The wound was then drawn together and the flow of blood entirely checked.

Since that time, over a week ago, there has been no further bleeding from the wound in the heart, which is apparently entirely healed. Nor has there been any sign of blood poisoning. On the morning after the operation, however, the patient had a high temperature, and signs of pneumonia appeared in the lower lungs.

Traces of this pneumonia still persist, and it is this, and not the condition of the man's heart, that is causing the attending surgeons anxiety. The difficult and rarely attempted operation of sewing up the heart has apparently been performed with complete success.

Doctors Locate Bullet By Phone

1915

London Surgeons Have New Method of Discovering Presence of Foreign Body

London. — One of the romantic touches in modern surgery which the exigencies of the present war have introduced is a method of detecting bullets and fragments of shell in the human body by means of a telephone. This method is employed in special cases in one of the large London hospitals.

To a telephone receiver two short lengths of wire are attached. One of these ends in a small piece of platinum; this is placed upon any part of the patient's skin which has been moistened with salt water. The other end of the wire terminates in a thread of antiseptic silver, and this is bound around the surgeon's probe or lancet or other instrument. The surgeon then places the receiver to his ear and makes the incision.

The instant the instrument touches the bullet a very distinct rattle is heard, quite different from the faint murmur audible as the instrument merely cuts through the flesh, and in this way when X-rays fail, as they sometimes do, the foreign substance is located.


He Is a War Hero At 13

Youngest Noncommissioned Officer in the French Army

Paris. — The youngest noncommissioned officer in the French army is Marcel Vernier, who is thirteen years and seven mouths old. He followed the artillery as a kitchen helper at the opening of the war and learned to ride a horse and was quickly promoted to be a corporal. He has been named adjutant sergeant major and his name has been proposed for the military medal for valor in action. He was recently wounded and was brought to a Paris hospital.

Vernier is an orphan and is one of a large family of young brothers and sisters.

Legislation Needed for Human Vivisection

1902

No sooner had Dr. Russell, the Brooklyn physician who wishes to be vivisected, announced his wishes to the press and medical fraternity than it struck the army of the unemployed that here was the solution of the problem of existence. The very next day in New York City numerous volunteers applied for engagements on the operating table, provided they could make living — or as the case might be — dying wages at it. They admitted they were not scientists; but they were willing to advance the cause of science for a suitable consideration. No reasonable offer refused. If there was anything in it for them, they were ready to be vivisected, gentlemen, or perish in the attempt.

Unfortunately for the new vocation which seemed to be opening up to persons out of other employment, the New York authorities declare that the startling proposition of human vivisection comes under the laws regulating murder, manslaughter and homicide, and cannot, therefore, be put into effect without encountering legal opposition of a zealous and determined character. The repeal of the obnoxious laws seems absolutely necessary before human vivisection can be practiced freely and enthusiastically on the part of either vivisectionists or vivisected.

The lawyers are agreed about that, but the doctors, as usual, are not agreed about anything in particular. Some say that human vivisection is eminently desirable, while others say that they cannot see why they should pay high prices to human subjects when guinea pigs and rabbits are so cheap. As to Dr. Russell himself, however, most physicians and surgeons are agreed that there is one part of him the opening of which would greatly interest them, and that is his brain.

Man Lives Without Stomach — Predigested Food

1909

Man Lives Without Stomach

NEW YORK — William Smith, whose stomach was removed three weeks ago in the Bushwick Hospital, Brooklyn, has left the institution cured, the surgeons say. There is no reason why Smith cannot live, it is said, and his only handicap will be that he can eat nothing except predigested foods.


Stove Discharged Rifle

EVANSVILLE, Indiana — A stove, which Mrs. Mary Gregory was trying to set up this afternoon fell against a loaded rifle in the corner. The weapon was discharged and Mrs. Gregory was shot in the abdomen and is said to be dying tonight.


Whisky is 86 Years Old

SPENCER, Indiana — Workmen engaged in tearing down the old Owen County courthouse found a gallon jug of whisky, 86 years old, buried in a crevice in the foundation stones under the building. The liquor is in possession of the county auditor, who has purchased a spoon preparatory to dealing the liquid out to county officials and others.


Hurled From Auto Into Tree

NEW YORK — When a speeding automobile struck a tree near Coney Island five men were in the machine, but after the accident the ambulance physicians found only four men, all of whom had suffered broken ribs or other injuries. When one of the four recovered consciousness he inquired for the fifth member of the party and a search revealed an unconscious man hanging over a limb of a tree, to which he had been hurled by the collision.

No Brain Operation for Train Bandit

Editorial, 1922

Were Roy Gardner, the mail train bandit, permitted to undergo the suggested brain operation to make him a law abiding citizen, it would be among the probabilities that he would become an angel. Contrary to the generally prevailing opinion, brain surgery is considerably more of a failure than a success.

Gardner had been told that his propensity to rob mail trains was due to pressure on the brain, and a simple operation to remove the pressure would give him normal moral sense. In the Federal penitentiary, in Leavenworth, Kans., he demands that the operation should be performed, insisting that Attorney General Daugherty promised him relief through surgery.

The Department of Justice decides now that the operation cannot be performed. Prison officials had wired the department that they believed the operation would not do Gardner any good.

Many moral irregularities are due unquestionably to mental or physical disease or deficiency. Medical or surgical treatment is effectual with many of them, but it is not a certain remedy or cure.

As to brain surgery proper, it is a last resort in a desperate case. The great majority of operations on the brain itself are fatal. Though trephining the skull and removing pressure is a simple performance, it is more often unsuccessful than successful. Surgical experience obviously is, therefore, sufficient warrant for the department's adverse decision.

—The Monessen Daily Independent, Monessen, PA, Oct. 23, 1922, p. 2.

How to Improve Ears That Project Far From Head

1908

Because of the number of inquiries as to whether it is possible to improve projecting ears, I am writing this special advice. Such a deformity — for ears that stick far out from the head can scarcely be termed otherwise — is one for which there is no remedy after years of maturity are reached. For when one advances beyond the period of early youth the cartilage becomes hard and unyielding, and only a surgical operation has any effect. Such treatment is expensive, and so few persons can avail themselves of its benefits.

It is barely possible that months of bandaging might accomplish a reduction in the distance from the head, but of this I am rather doubtful. If it were possible to soak the ears so thoroughly in oil as to soften the hard substances and at the same time hold them close to the head, the protruding might become less. Theoretically this is undoubtedly so; practically, I doubt if the longest course of this treatment would be effective. It is the surgeon's knife or the continuance of projecting ears.

The most annoying part of homely ears is that proper care in youth would have kept them inconspicuous, if it did not make them pretty, and even a natural tendency to projection, if taken in time, could have been checked.

—MARGARET MIXTER.

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.

Injured Boy Puts Ear In His Pocket

1920

Appears at Hospital and Surgeon Sews It in Place

NEW ORLEANS, La. — Dr. Jerome Landry, house surgeon, Charity hospital, unwrapped from a piece of newspaper the right ear of Sidney Whiteside, 16 years old, and within a few minutes had sewed the ear back onto the boy's head.

The boy showed no bad effects from the operation, and Dr. Landry expected the grafting of the ear to be a success.

Sidney was struck by an automobile while taking a ride on the side of a street car in Gretna, the police say. The ear was torn from his head, but he had it in his pocket when he arrived at his home.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 10.

Six Stiches in His Heart

1920

Trial Jury Is Shown Photograph Made by the Surgeon

PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- The story of a remarkable surgical operation was told in the Criminal Court by Dr. J. F. Berg of St. John's Hospital in the trial of John Hoza, accused of attempting to kill Steve Belonik in a fight last April 9.

Dr. Berg exhibited X-ray plates which provided a startling record of Belonik's case. He testified that Belonik had received a stab wound in the back, which had cut the left ventricle of the heart.

"I opened the chest, removing several ribs, and sewed the heart up, putting six stitches in it," said the surgeon. "The man was out of danger on April 21."

The photographs showed the heart and the sutured incision.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 9.

The Sinking of a Small Island

----------
Frequent seismic manifestations of late had prepared the world for news of some such upheaval as that which is reported off the coast of Salvador, accompanied by the sinking of a small island. This has involved a lamentable loss of life, and illustrates anew the peril of making homes in the earthquake-ridden sections of the earth, for several similar catastrophes have occurred in that quarter.
----------
In Colorado they propose a law making it an offense for doctors to cut out patients' appendices unless it is necessary. The enactment of such a statute would enable us to foresee the time when professional ethics would require every doctor to testify that all his brother practitioners' appendix-pruning was positively required.
----------
Feminine Financiering
He -- I've won our bet on the football game and you owe me ten kisses.
She (a commercial school graduate) -- Very well, I'll give you a draft on mamma.
----------
Advertisement (1911)

Nothing Can Compare with Hostetter's Stomach Bitters for genuine goodness when the system has been weakened by some severe illness or when you suffer from Poor Appetite, Sour Risings, Headache, Bloating, Indigestion, Dyspepsia, Colds, Grippe and Malaria. Thousands have found this true during the past 57 years. Why not you today, but be sure to get the genuine.
HOSTETTER'S CELEBRATED STOMACH BITTER.

--The Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas, 1911.