Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1883 — Triumph of Surgery. [ARTICLE]

Triumph of Surgery.

Modern surgery is able to provide a man with a new nose, new lips, new eyelids, and an artificial throat. It can do more; it can, by the process known as skin-grafting, provide him with a new skin. The following description of the process is reported by an English surgeon: “The patient, a pretty little girl of 8, was admitted into St. hospital. Two years previously, her dress had caught fire, burning both legs from the hips to the knees severely. “After a year’s treatment the left thigh had healed up; but the right one had never got better, and presented a terrible ulcer, extending all down the outer side. “For four months she lay there without any signs of improvement. On the sth of May, the child was brought into the operating theater, and placed under the influence of chloroform. “Two small pieces of skin were snipped from the back with a pair of sharppointed scissors, and imbedded —planted, in sact —in the granulations or ‘proud-flesh’ of the wound—two tiny atoms, scarcely bigger than a pin’s head, and consisting of a little more than the cuticle or outer skin which we raise in blisters by rowing or exposure to a hot sun. • “Five days later, no change was visible ; and by-and-by the operation was considered to have failed, since the pieces of skin had disappeared, instead' of growing as had been expected. “But twelve days after the operation, two little white cicatrices appeared where the seed had been sown; and in my notes I find that a week later these were big enough to be dignified as ‘islands of nPw issue.’ “The most wonderful part of it was that, not only did these islands grow and increase rapidly in circumference, but the fact of their presence seemed to stimulate the ulcer itself, which took on a healing action around its margin. “Several more grafts were implanted subsequently, including morsels from M. Pollock’s arm, from my own, and from the shoulders of a negro; the last producing a white scar-tissue like the rest. In two months the wound was healed, and the little patient was discharged cured. ” No science has made more rapid progress during the last century than surgery. The skillful surgeon is becoming one of the best friends of mankind.