All Out?

When a surgeon performs an operation to remove gallstones, one of the most important things is to get them all out. If he leaves any behind, it may mean another operation.

Dr. Charles K. Kirby* of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine recently had an idea for making sure. He put Researcher Edward G. Thurston of Pennsylvania State College to work on a gadget. Result of their collaboration is a surgeon-alarm for gallstones: a tiny quartz crystal enclosed in silver at the end of a slender, hollow silver probe, and attached to an amplifier. The quartz acts like a phonograph pickup; when the probe touches a gallstone, it makes a ping or click--like the noise made when two small rocks are knocked together. The sound can be amplified enough to be heard through operating-room loudspeakers, or tuned down to the surgeon's earphones.

The probe is small enough to reach into the ducts that drain the gall bladder and liver. The device was perfected late last August; by last week it had been used successfully in 25 operations. It will not locate stones without an operation, but Dr. Kirby hopes soon to have a gadget that will.

* Not to be confused with Dr. William M. M. Kirby, his identical twin, an instructor at Stanford University School of Medicine.

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