Medicine Looks Ahead 255 



Transplanting Vital Organs 



In the field of surgery Ralph W. Gerard, Department of 

 Physiology, University of Chicago, looks forward to the day 

 when it will be possible to replace entirely an injured kidney, 

 or other organ, by transplanting into the body a healthy one. 

 "So far," he says, "such organ transplantation has been 

 achieved only in so simple a case as the transparent front of 

 the eye, but there is no reason now for supposing that the 

 successful transplantation of complex organs will not one day 

 be possible." * 



A Cure for Deafness 



Drs. Valdes and Schulhof of Mexico have devised a new 

 method of curing deafness which they believe can cure 60 

 per cent of all the cases in the United States and Mexico. The 

 method consists of a plastic reconstruction of the middle and 

 inner ear, and it has worked successfully on scores of peo- 

 ple. The affected parts of the ear, which have been destroyed 

 by sickness or accident, are totally removed. Plastic substi- 

 tutes, made of "materials" from the patient's own body, are 

 put in their place. These operations are performed at the Pub- 

 lic Welfare Building, but their success has become so wide- 

 spread that rich as well as poor are now flocking to the clinic 

 of Drs. Valdes and Schulhof. 



1 The New York Times, November 7, 1943, reported on a motion-picture 

 demonstration in New York City of pioneer experiments in the Soviet Insti- 

 tute of Experimental Biology at Moscow in which animals that had been 

 dead as long as fifteen minutes were restored to life. The revival of dead 

 animals is achieved by a new apparatus, known as the "autoejector." Profes- 

 sor J. B. S. Haldane, British scientist who made the sound-track commentary 

 explained that the autoejector "carries out the functions of the heart and 

 lungs." Biologists hailed the experiments as promising a new epoch in medi- 

 cal science, "bringing closer the day when operations now incompatible with 

 life will be possible. These may include repair to a damaged heart or brain 

 and the restoration of persons who died of shock and hemorrhage," the 

 Times reported. 



