Lungs Squeezed

August members of the German Scientific Society learned that Surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch of Munich would tell them, at their conference at Karlsruhe, Germany, last week, how he squeezed tubercular pus out of the lungs of consumptive patients. They thronged to hear him. The operation-- artificial pneumothorax--is by no means new. An Irish doctor, James Carson of Liverpool, figured it out theoretically in 1821; and during 1894-95 an Italian, Forlanini, worked out the full, practical method. It takes such beautiful advantage of the mechanics of the human torso that the German scientists listened well to Surgeon Sauerbruch, an especially dextrous technician.

The chest may be considered to be a keg of two compartments (pleural cavities), each containing a lung. As each lung expands, it fills its compartment; as it contracts, it leaves a void. Tubercular lungs struggle to fill their pleural compartments; they get no opportunity to rest and heal the sores that tuberculosis germs are eating into their tissues. If one lung could cease its transference of oxygen from the air to the blood and carbon dioxide from the blood to the air, if it could get a rest, it might heal up. The operation of artificial pneumothorax does give one lung such a rest, leaving the other to breathe for both. The surgeon sticks a hollow needle into the pleural cavity of the tubercular lung and lets some air, oxygen or nitrogen flow in. The lung collapses. He increases the pressure of the gas against the flaccid lung. This squeezes tubercular secretions out into the windpipe, like toothpaste out of a tube; and the patient expectorates. The pressure also brings healing blood to the lung, and after a time the sputum ceases to carry the germs of tuberculosis. At that time the surgeon discontinues his injections of gas into the pleural cavity; the" lung starts doing its proper work again.

In 40% of tubercular cases, Surgeon Sauerbruch told the German scientists, although a few already knew the facts, the tubercular patients are entirely cured; in another 40% they can resume earning a living; the rest do not improve, die in a brief time.