Surgeon of the Cornada

The bull veered. The 21,000 aficionados packed into Madrid's Plaza Monumental let out a mighty gasp as its right horn slashed into the chest of Antonio Bienvenida, 38, dean of Spain's matadors. Twice, with a savage spasm of his lacerated but still powerful neck muscles, the bull tossed Bienvenida into the air. It was mauling Bienvenida, helpless on the sand, when the peones dashed up to cape the bull away. Instantly, Bienvenida's father and brother called on a husky, hawknosed six-footer, still dark-haired despite his 67 years: Dr. Luis Gimenez Guinea, one of the world's most specialized surgeons, since 1940 official doctor of the plaza de toros and head surgeon of the 12-bed hospital for bullfighters, the Sanatorio de los Toreros.

In a little white-walled infirmary under the stands last week, Don Luis carefully snipped off Bienvenida's tight white-and-gold costume, ordered him wheeled into the operating room. There, with two assisting surgeons, he assessed the damage: four broken ribs, possibly a broken fibula (calf bone), a ten-inch gash from the right ear, which was ripped open, through the area of the parotid gland and carotid artery almost to the armpit. The outlook: muy grave--critical.

Small Scalpels. No man living knows more about cornadas (horn wounds) than Don Luis Gim& #233;nez Guinea. He has written the book, classifying them according to the placement and type of horn--blunt or sharp, wide or narrow-spaced, projecting high or forward. Among the worst are wounds caused by splintered horns, which usually fan out in at least three directions, destroying a wide area of tissue.

With the bleeding Bienvenida, Surgeon Gimenez Guinea wasted no time on such trivia as ribs, tackled immediately the ear-to-armpit wound that had exposed nerves and arteries in the neck. He had no time to prepare the patient for surgery; that is a luxury Gimenez Guinea rarely enjoys. He told an assistant to inject antibiotics. Then he went to work with especially sharp, small scalpels with interchangeable blades of razor steel. Don Luis trimmed away dead tissue, sewed the edges of healthy tissue together, dusting the wound with germ-killing sulfa drugs. The most urgent work done, he sent Bienvenida to the Sanatorio, a few blocks away.

Special Techniques. The matador hovered near death, then began to gain strength slowly. This week Bienvenida was recovering. Like many of the 2,500 bullfighters, from the lowliest peones to the top matadors, whom Don Luis has treated, Bienvenida felt that no other surgeon could have saved his life.

Gimenez Guinea has saved many a seemingly hopeless case when matadors have been gored in the groin, where the horn often severs the femoral artery--the kind of wound that killed the great Manolete in 1947 in Linares, far from Don Luis's aid. To stanch the gusher-like bleeding from such a wound, standard techniques are too slow and inefficient. Don Luis has perfected a method of applying pressure to the lower belly, just below the point where the femoral arteries branch off. To let the wounds heal, he uses another technique of his own: draining them through the muscles. Though he has a private practice, Don Luis draws only $1,000 a year from his bullfight duties. He has well earned the gold medal that the Bullfighters' Association will give him this week--and the accolade in the corrida motto: "Only God and Gimenez can work a miracle."

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