702 



SURGERY AND MEDICINE, RECENT ADVANCES IN. 



from their vital condition in the arteries of the 

 bullock, and all germs casually attendant having 

 been sterilized from the first, the containing liq- 

 uid is injected into subcutaneous tissue, into 

 veins, into arteries ; is absorbed by the raw sur- 

 faces of wounds or sores of every kind, or enters 

 the circulation by the absorbents of the stomach 

 or any part of the intestines to which it can be 

 applied, with all the effect of a natural enlarge- 

 ment on the spot, of the volume and vigor of 

 the blood, taking up its tissue-forming and dis- 

 ease-expelling office at once in the part affected, 

 and to which it is applied, while employed at the 

 same time as a supplement or even substitute for 

 alimentation, to build up and invigorate the sys- 

 tem through the general circulation. The ap- 

 plications that have been made of this " elixir " 

 nave developed degrees and modes of vital effi- 

 ciency in the blood that were before unsuspected 

 this more especially in surgical cases hitherto 

 nearly intractable while the practicability of 

 supplying its power effectually to combat local 

 lesions and the moribund condition resulting 

 from exhaustion by disease, haemorrhage, etc., is 

 no less a complete revelation to medical science. 

 A person in articulo mortis from surgical or 

 childbirth hemorrhage, or from exhaustion by 

 fever accompanied with inability to retain a 

 drop of any kind of nourishment, medicine, or 

 even stimulant for days, is a kind of case re- 

 ported by hundreds in the recent practice of 

 physicians who have successfully come to the 

 rescue with bovinine supplied to the blood by 

 any available way of access, as per rectum, or 

 even by subcutaneous injection when no other 

 access was practicable or adequate to the emer- 

 gency. The degree of uniformity and certainty 

 in which a sort of resurrection is effected in such 

 cases is as far beyond precedent in medical ex- 

 perience as the almost miraculous efficacy devel- 

 oped in the application, topical or general, of 

 the blood extract. 



In surgery the fatal collapse from haemor- 

 rhage and also in medical practice the collapse 

 of cholera, typhoid fever, etc. had been recently 

 remedied by subcutaneous or arterial infusion of 

 slightly saline water, sometimes as much as a 

 gallon being thus thrown into the circulation 

 within a few minutes. Still later, the more 

 normal and substantial re-enforcement of the 

 circulation by bovinine has been employed in 

 collapse with the most admirable effect, and 

 promises very definitely to be not only a sover- 

 eign, resource for the surgeon, but a means of 

 carrying many patients safely through the last 

 and desperate stage of Asiatic cholera, etc., and, 

 still better, of preventing that stage by a timely 

 supply to meet the drain of the serous diarrhoea, 

 not only filling the empty blood vessels, but fill- 

 ing them with tissue-building blood. Not to 

 dwell, within our narrow limits, on the numer- 

 ous applications of this vital agent that might 

 be cited, the leading line that it has happened to 

 take thus far must be more particularly noticed, 

 viz., the cure of wounds and ulcers. The earli- 

 est discovery of this power was made by Dr. W. 

 H. May, of New York, in 1888, by experiment 

 on a desperate ulcer of three years' growth, 4 by 

 6 or 7 inches in dimensions, deep in the muscu- 

 lar tissues of the leg, and found proof against 

 all agents then known for checking its continual 



encroachment and growth. His method was 

 that of hypodermical injection of bovinine at a 

 number of points around the circumference of 

 the ulcer, and about an inch from its margin. 

 'The entire ulcer was expelled and supplanted by 

 sound flesh within three months from the be- 

 ginning of this treatment a mere experiment, 

 and the first ever made. Since then several 

 physicians have vanquished this all but incura- 

 ble kind of disease by the same agent, but lat- 

 terly without the painful and tedious injection 

 process, which has been discarded for most cases 

 in favor of direct application of bovinine to the 

 interior of the sore, after due cleansing. The 

 record by 1 physician of 335 ulcers (indolent, 

 syphilitic, varicose, and tuberculous) shows 95 

 per cent, of completed cures. (Inflammation, 

 however, must be subdued by other treatment 

 before applying bovinine, which otherwise would 

 aggravate the case by the active increase of local 

 nutrition which it sets up. The removal of the 

 morbid products and sterilization of the part 

 must also be carefully performed, in order to a 

 free absorption of the blood extract without 

 deterioration from contact with the acid dis- 

 charges.) The treatment of cancers has been 

 initiated with gratifying success in the super- 

 ficial class (epithelioma), and sarcoma is thought 

 without doubt to be equally amenable to the 

 blood treatment, where it is accessible. It is 

 thought quite possible that like success may be 

 had with cancer of the organs when in accessi- 

 ble position and stage of development. Phthisis, 

 or tuberculosis of the lungs, being an ulceration 

 that is readily overcome by the blood treatment 

 when occurring in external parts, has also been 

 attacked on the same principle with encourag- 

 ing, indeed surprising, effect by Dr. T. J. Biggs, 

 of the New York Polyclinic. Bounds can not 

 be set at present to the range of beneficence 

 opening before this truly epoch-making discov- 

 ery in medicine. Its place in operative surgery 

 has already extended to the treatment of injuries 

 and diseases of both muscle and bone which must 

 otherwise have been disposed of by amputation ; 

 cases of which, attended with wonderful success, 

 might be cited in detail did space permit. 



Operative Surgery. In operations on the 

 abdominal organs and the brain, it is needless 

 to remark, modern surgery has startled and 

 thrilled the world with its later triumphs. Bac- 

 teriology and antisepsis or asepsis, which if 

 actual comes to the same thing or better are 

 the twin pillars of our operative progress, but- 

 tressed on either side by anaesthesia and bovi- 

 nine injection. Intestinal tumors and lacera- 

 tions are now cut out of the opened abdomen 

 and the wounds sewed up and healed, by thou- 

 sands on thousands, with less danger than lately 

 attended the amputation of limbs. The stomach 

 and liver have each been successfully cut partly 

 away in the removal of tumors. The bladder 

 and the female organs are extirpated and dis- 

 pensed with when necessary. The diseased lar- 

 ynx is removed, and replaced with an artificial 

 substitute by which intelligible speech is effected. 

 The lungs have been relieved of diseased por- 

 tions by the knife and healed. Nerves, great 

 and small, as well as muscles, tendons, and 

 bones, are resected or removed, replaced or re- 

 united, and repaired in a serviceable manner. 



