Word: abdomen
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...serious doctor no longer feels like Christ over Lazarus when he makes a dead patient's heart beat again. An injection of adrenalin or a tickle with the electrical pacemaker may do the trick. Or, if the patient is on the operating table with his abdomen or chest open, the surgeon may massage the heart into motion. Nonethe-less this stale medical story still looks like news and is printed, often on front pages a dozen times a year for the bench of those who cannot remember what they read...
...heart of a patient on the operating table stops. The alert surgeon gives the patient an injection of adrenalin, or tickles the heart with a needle, or stimulates it with an electrical pacemaker (TIME, Dec. 19, 1932). Or if he is working in the cavity of the chest or abdomen he may massage the heart back into action...
Last week Assistant Superintendent William Victor Machonachy of the University of Maryland's University Hospital (oldest in Baltimore, founded 1823), told how a staff surgeon was working inside a woman's abdomen when the anesthetist suddenly cried: "Doctor, I cannot feel her pulse." The surgeon thrust his hand under the patient's diaphragm, gently squeezed the heart against the chest wall, slowly relaxed it, squeezed again, relaxed. In a few seconds the heart was beating by itself, and the surgeon resumed the operation...
...insistently requested be placed under general anesthesia order be fully unconscious. This, however, not granted for his own good as it was pre-arranged use only local anesthetic order avoid least possibility risking any lesion to lung. An incision about four to five inches long on left lower abdomen was made through which an L-shaped stone was removed from lower part left ureter in about 12 minutes. Thorough exploration of entire ureter upwards to kidney, downwards to urinary bladder and careful repair wound required altogether about 50 minutes.* One extraordinary thing about operation is that peritoneum not opened...
...reach any of these organs the surgeon must cut through the peritoneum, a closed sack within the hollow of the abdomen. The outside coat of the peritoneum resists germs, but its slippery, serous inner wall offers streptococci an ideal breeding place. The peritonitis which results is exceedingly hard to cure. A high percentage of peritonitis cases die, and many of the remainder suffer lifelong pain and debility from adhesions. Because of the difficulty of coping with this form of infection all surgeons cock hopeful ears toward any serious colleague who promises them a preventive of peritonitis...