Hide Article Text (OCR)
THE GALVESTON DAILY NEWSScientific Marvels of the War—Medical and Surgical DiscoveriesCopyright. 1319, by the New York Herald Company—all rights reserved. Copy-r is lit. 1919, in Canada by the New York Herald Company.Jtv FltAHi V. .STOCKtill!DCE.% ¥ • *• ■ UL Ikwarcomes to be written from the perspective of twenty years hence, the conscientious historian wilt point to the marvelous advances In preventive medicine, In curative medicine, Jrt surgical principles and technique, in sanitation and in personal hygivno, an »pcrh«'ip« the most important group of scientific achievements brought about by iho war and the pressure of military necesnlty. In point of lasting: and cumulative benefits to the people of thlt;* who}/* wnrlH, ih* new k*yw!»“1glt;* acquired of means for the prevention and cure of diseases and the heal In# of in*-juries, together %viLh tin: application on the largest scate tn history of the accumulated scientific knowledge of the ■whole subject of individual and community lieu 1th, may well rank first, whether *- — — — — »- - * «,. * - -4 — * 1 - *»■« “**53' J 'l. i'l. lll\»t'.'Ure\lt; - aXt’-'XTTT in?3 VTX +1iv«*»lr «*•***tents or in terms of personal happiness in Us rolleeUve value to mankind.H«al(lilfKt Array in llUtor,Whether the ill eco very* of new medical and surgtenl ir.enwures and the instruction of UO.We or more young physician* in their uses is of greater Importune*Artrt (’t/I nwore killed or died of wounds, while 184,000 died of disease. The latest revised casualty list of the War Department show8 that in this war 44,7S3-American soldiers were killed or died of wounds,* and only 29,887 died of disease!Compared with me mortality amucm men of the same average ages tn civil Jlfe, there waft a slightly larger- proportion of deaths from disease in the army. This was due entirely to the transmission of the highly communicable diseases, measles, scarlet fever, meningitis and pneumonia. These took their heaviest toll among soldiers from rural districts who had never been exposed to these infections, and their prevalence was the natural result of bringing them Jnto cJuie contact with men from every section of th« country, WUh tho exception of the four classes pf Infection named, there was a smaller proportion of deaths from disease in the army than la the same number of men of the same age in civil life.Typhoid, the scourge of all former wars, was almost totally absent. This disease, which killed thousands in the Spanlsh-Amerlcan War, ia so completely guarded against that it now barely figures at all In army health reports, Arid before the United States had been In the war a year there hud been developed-a vaccine or serum against pneumonia,identification of the ‘cootie/' or body louse, as a carrier of disease, and the development of means of combating hie activities. To the cootfe have been traced the germs of typhus and of several other diseases. Typhus, from time immemorial, linn be^n the scourge of armies the woiiu over. It is. Indeed, Jknown in some parts of the world as “army fever/’ Wherever there are people living Sn crowded quarters, with more or Jess physical contact and under unclean and insanitary conditions, typhus Is a certain menace. It broke out in Serbia among the non-combatant population early in the war. fl.nd teijfi of thousand* of Serbians died from It. Many member* of the American typhus commission sent ter Serbia by Lhe Red Crosj alao caught the fever and died. At that time it was only suspected that the body louse might be the principal carrier of this “spotted fever/' Now the guilt has been definitely placed and another of the world's chief causes of misery and death has come under the control of man.Surgical JprflclM. more spectacular than these and.Tarmany other important advances in medicine are the achievements in surgery whereby it la now possible to bring back wounded men from the very brink of the grave; to he*I and restore to uso-not fall to heal even the* most seriously infected wounds. Much.-has been said about the CarreUDpkTh method of treating infected and . otficr wounds. How marvelous it actually is In .the precision with which it achieves its end iB not generally understood. It reduces themost difficult of.all surgical problems to the same mathematical precision with which the simplest operation is performed. . . ■CniTebDakln Method.The Carrel-Dakln treatment is another * product of the Rockefeller institute's research, having been devised by Drs. Charles Dakln and Alexis Carrel, two of the most distinguished members of the institute staff. To Dr. Dakln belongs the credit of discovering a new anti-septic, hypochlorite of sodium. Chlorine, thesame deadly gas that, as I hove pointed vlcut in a previous article in tbEs series, gives the killing power to phosgene, mustard gas and the rest of the deadly array of war chemicals, is the germ-killing basis of this new antiseptic. To combine It with other elements in a pro-jortlon that would prevent it from inuring raw tissues, while permitting itIstill to exercise all of Its powerful ger*-;id; 'lt;__7_____mlcidal effect, waa the problem Dr. Dakln solved, 1 ‘ ...Dr. Carrel, the Americanized Frenchman Avho.KPr Fiirjrlo.nl torhnlnno 4 ubeen followed. Given a wound of a certain depth and extent. If the prescribed method be followed,- it can be predicted in advance, almost to ah hour, when the outer lips of the wound can he closed and the patient removed. * Nothing so precise, nothing so mathematically exact, has ever been known to surgical science. More than a thousand army surgeons were given special two weelte’ courses of training in the Catrel-Dakln. method at the Rockefeller Institute before being sent overseas: thousands of wounds that under old methods would have meant death or amputation were healed with the least possible reminders remaining to the victim.X-llny Progress*Under the direction -of officers of the Medical Corps of the-array, remarkable1 advances have been made In the use of the X-ray for the detection and exact location of foreign bodies. - Not only does the perfected X-ray apparatus show by'photography the position of a bullet or a piece of shelt, but by ingenious methods the exact depth below tho surface is also determined. At the samescope of this article to scientific achievements-that have a-.definite peace application. But among these, • surelyi .is the discovery.by Dr. William Townsend Porter of the Rockefeller Institute of the-cause of-the formerly fatal * condition, j known as “surgical shock/’ and of a cure for It. “Shock*’ is a term used by sur-feons in several different connections, roadly, it means mental and physical - collapse. “Shell shock” is a nervous condition, susceptible of cure. The .form of shock arising from dread***of the knife and pain of an operation Is nurcly mental in origin and-'is effectually nrevented by the discovery by Dr. Criie of Clevelandtime that the Roentgen photograph isrfibeing taken a powerful electro-magnet is brought over the patient’s body. The surgeon places his band as nearly as possible over the spot beneath which thetllflnn n 1* ntnal (a nmhn/4^1 alt;1 *IXf I* ah f haof a way of blocking off communicationb?through the nerves between the seat of operation and the brain. Bui “surgical shock” Is a condition following severe injuries, amputations or compound fractures. that is distinctly physical and not at all mental or nervous in origin.Cojjqucm “Surgical Shock/1 ■Dr. Porter discovered that surgical shock, which Is frequently the cause of death after industrial.accident as well as on the battlefield. Is caused by the entrance Into the blood vessels of tiny globules of fat, either from the fatty layers just below tho akin or from the mar-I row of broken bones. These fat globules I choke the tiny capiJIarJes and keen the[ Vi J Jf_______1 I _ a*. « . ■ .1 .been made of bone’ from the - patient’s: own .shin and flesh and' skin from his forearm; shattered JawTi'.'have. been replaced by silver “bancs/1 so adjusted, that-there.is hardly an. outward Indication of an operation. And in tlie field'of ■ artificial arras and legs and • their ■perfect adaptation to the .necessities of the .dismembered, American methods have superseded almostvall others. Artificial arms and hands' .with which the soldier who has lost both’ - arms can write, handle knife and fork, lift a glass of water and perform many other simple operations, have been fitted; artificial legs and feet that enable their wearer even to dance, have been brought to perfection by the staff of expert-surgeons and limb makers working at the Army* Medical College and the Walter Keed Hospital at Washington. All of these Inventions, devices nn'd discoveries are that much distinct gain, adapted-as they are to the needs of a world in which disease and accident will still continue to take toll of human life and limb.-When the United States entered tho war tho entire supply of surgical instruments on hand in the United States- was adequate only for a fraction of the probable need. Surgical instruments had been chiefly made In Germany; almost every dealer In surgical Instruments Ini ___
Newspaper Details
Galveston Daily News
Galveston, Texas, US
Sun, Mar 16, 1919
Page 25
Full Page
Clipped by
Canton S.
OK, USA 27 Mar 2023
Other Publications Near Galveston, Texas
News Tribune
Mainland Extra
Galveston Daily News
TheDailyNews
Galveston Tribune
