Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1911 — WIRE BROKEN BONES [ARTICLE]

WIRE BROKEN BONES

Silver Strand Hastens Knitting of Fractured Parts.

Wonderful Progress Made In Burgical Bcience Illustrated by Two Oper-ations-—One on Island of Tristan Was Difficult.

London. —The wonderful progress made in surgical science is well illustrated by the accounts of two operations—one from the London hospital and the other from the lonely islarfd of Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic, 2,000 miles west of Cape Town.

The operation at the London hospital was carried out with great success by means of a novel -apparatus for wiring together the ends of a broken bone. The Instrument, which was invented by Professor Lambotti of Paris, consists of a strong, pliable wire of softened German silver, on which a screw thread has been cut. A nut runs loosely on this thread. One surface of the wire for its last* eight inches Is flattened out so that below the nut the wire has one flat surface and one rounded. “In wiring a broken bone,” one of the officials at thehospltarexplained, “the surgeon, after having separated the soft parts covering the fracture, bends the flattened end of the wire into the shape of a button hook, the flat surface being inside and the round threaded surface on the outside. “Slipping this hook under the fragments, he pulls the free end up toward him with a pair of forceps, and then, opposing the two flattened surfaces of t the.wire, he screws the nut down until the loop thus made grasps the bone sufficiently tightly. T*he rest of the wire above the nut is then cut off, and another similar wire support is placed round another section of the break.

“With this instrument an oblique fracture of the thigh bone in a middle aged man was wired in about half the titne it usually takes. An X-ray picture shows that the bones are held in perfect position, instead of being in bed five or six weeks, as used to be customary before the days of wiring, this patient will probably be up in less than three weeks. The wire and the-.nut, which, course, are al-

lowed to remain about the bone after healing, give no inconvenience in after life.”

The operation at Tristan da Cunha was carried out by A. Repello, whoconducts the church services and performs other functions for the ninetynine inhabitants. He writes: “A child wgs injured by a stone coming down the hillside and falling upon her legs, breaking both of them and making four very bad wounds, which got full of sand. 1 attended the child for nearly three months and I suppose it will be two mbre months before the are healed. : J ■ •

“I was in great difficulty at first, ns I had to operate on one of the feet, part of which I had to remove, including two toes. I have no surgical instruments. All I had was a littlie cotton wool and a little lint, my instruments consisting of a pair of scissors and a pocket knife. But, thank heaven, she improved wonderfully. "If things were as they used to be when a British warship periodically visited the island, I should be provided with all the necessary things* but now we have not that privilege. But I hope better times are in store Jor us.”