A new fluorescent test which tells surgeons whether or not to amputate was described last week at New York Medical College by Drs. Kurt Lange & Linn John Boyd.
When the doctors have a patient with a gangrenous foot or strangulated hernia (protruding loop of gut), they wheel him into an operating room, inject fluorescein, a reddish dye, into the vein of his arm. Then they darken the room, shine an ultraviolet lamp on the gangrenous area. The dye should make a circuit of the patient's blood stream in 20 seconds. If the gut or foot is still alive and receiving fresh...
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