Stunting Surgeons

Something about Cleveland--the eminence of Dr. George Washington Crile, the amplitude of the Cleveland Hospitals group, the tight little neatness of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, the excellence of hotel liquor--gave a district meeting of the American College of Surgeons in Cleveland last week a newsworthy lustre which recent meetings of the same kind in Kansas City, Birmingham and St. Paul lacked. The surgeons last week chiefly wanted laymen to know about the desperate financial plight of U. S. hospitals. But newsgatherers were more interested in the following surgical stunts:

Half Brains. As a result of boldly but carefully removing tumors of the brain, surgeons have discovered that people can live well and intelligently with as much as one half of their brains excised. The remainder of the brain assumes all the mind's problems and the body's business, explained Dr. Winchell McKendree Craig of the Mayo Clinic.

Eye Cancer. A cure can be effected in practically every case of cancer of the eye, said Dr. John Oliver McReynolds of Dallas, because this not uncommon disease can be seen from the very start. An oculist, if he is attentive, may recognize the tumor when it is no bigger than a pin head. But only occasionally can the eye surgeon remove the cancer without destroying sight. Usually he must remove the entire eye.

"Cancer is Curable," cried Dr. Malcolm Thomas MacEachern, associate director of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. MacEachern credited surgery, x-rays and radium with 26,000 positive cures.

Advances. In recent years, observed Dr. MacEachern, surgery has made its greatest advances "in the field of the thyroid gland, the chest, the brain, the gall bladder, the stomach and the treatment of fractures.

"In the last three decades goitre surgery has made very rapid progress. The death rate not long ago was 15% to 20%. Now in well-regulated hospitals, this has dropped to less than 1%.

''Today the chest can be opened with little danger to the patient. This has contributed largely in the treatment of tuberculosis. . . . Draining the thoracic cavity of pus is now common.

"Today practically any part of the brain can be explored, and many conditions controlled.

"In the surgery of stomach and gall bladder mortality rates ranging from 20% to 30% have been reduced to 5% and 6%, and in many instances even lower.

"It is now possible to remove several feet of [intestine] with substantial safety to the patient's life.

"Surgery of the heart has not yet advanced to a very large extent but possibly as a result of investigation and research this type of surgery will develop more in the future.

"The advance in care of fractures is tremendous. What was spoken of as a compound fracture or comminuted fracture not long ago meant amputation in many cases. The limb can now be saved in such a manner as will prevent infection or loss of function which might cripple the patient.

"Finally, surgery has added on the average 15 years to the life of many persons who otherwise could not have found relief without surgical operation.''

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