Congress

In Manhattan, 2,500 men convened-- cool men. the U. S. Congress of Surgeons. They had with them roomfuls of technical exhibits, reams of data to exchange, scores of lectures to deliver. Drs. N. D. Royle and J. I. Hunter, of Australia, reported jointly discovering a remedy for rigid paralysis. Anti-vivisectionists writhed at hearing this discovery was made possible only by long experiment on small animals. The use of ethylene was explained-- a new anesthetic discovered in Chicago when white carnations bowed their heads, slept, because this substance had leaked into the greenhouse air from illuminating gas. Administered to humans it produces in 40 seconds a complete anesthesia lasting for four hours, making possible prolonged operations. In Chicago, a certain dog, rendered unconcious daily for several years with ethylene, has yet shown no ill effects. An instrument was exhibited which has power to make visible the vital essence of man's life in the form of a thin flame shaking upon a thread. The electricity generated by the heart is carried to a silver quartz thread hanging in a magnetic field. As the heart strikes in and out, this faint fire shakes and shakes in the silver cord--patent to man, as it was of old to Atropos* Dr. Charles H. Mayo of Minnesota warned laconically: "Americans eat too much." Officers elected: Dr. Rudolph Matas, of New Orleans, President; Drs. Eugene H. Pool of Manhattan, and John S. McFachern of Calgary, Canada, Vice Presidents.

*Atropos was the Fate who cut the thread of life with her "abhorred shears."