Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1917 — SEW NERVE INTO MAN’S ARM [ARTICLE]

SEW NERVE INTO MAN’S ARM

Remarkable Surgical Operation on Wounded Officer Is Successfully Performed. London. —Sufficient time has now elapsed to assure the complete success of one of the most striking surgical experiments resulting from the war, says the Mail. The patient, a young officer at the Queen Alexandra Hospital for Officers at' Highgate, had been severely wounded in the forearm, four inches of the ulnar nerve, one of the important nerves supplying the hand, being totally destroyed, thus rendering the hand practically useless. “About one case in ten of ordinary nerve grafting with laboratory treated nerves succeeds,” the surgeon who performed the operation told me, “so I decided to replace the destroyed nerve with another similar nerve as nearly alive as possible.” Search was therefore made at a number of London hospitals until the surgeon found what he wanted —a cas'e of a limb amputation, from which was obtained the required length of a practically living, healthy nerve of the same quality and size as the destroyed ulnar. This was sent to the officers’ hospital by taxicab. On Its arrival the officer was at once anesthetized, the wound in the forearm was opened, and the section of nerve was sewn to the two ends of the Injured ulnar, thus brklgii)g the gap. The wound was then closed. some weeks faint sensation, and, later, power to move the muscles of the hand governed by the ulnar nerve, gradually returned, until a few ’ weeks ago the officer was able to leave the hospital and take up light duties at a home station.