Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1884 — Finding a Needle. [ARTICLE]

Finding a Needle.

A needle broken short off in the flesh is troublesome to both surgeon and patient. There is so little to lay hold of with the forceps, that any touch which does not extract it is bound to give it an onward impulse. As it often happens that no trace of the broken needle can be found, because the patient has pushed it completely in, by attempting to withdraw it, two ingenious plans have been devised for ascertaining its location,which are thus described by a writer in Chambers’ Journal. A powerful magnet is held upon that part of the body for a quarter of an hour, so as to influence the fragment; then a finely hung polarized needle is suspended over it, when, if any iron be present, deflection will ensue. In Italy, a kind of ivory probe traversed by two wires has been used for the detection of foreign bodies of this nature io a deep wound, it being connected with an electric battery in such a way that directly the probe comes in contact with anything metallic the circuit is completed, and its pressence announced bv the ringing of a bell.