Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-05-25 | Page 25 | Unique Operation is Performed by Red Cross Nurse

Unique Operation Is Performed by Red Cross Nurse Razor and Cotton Thread Play Important Parts in Amputation of Limb. DRAMA, Macedonia, May 24. (By the Associated Press.) With a razor, a spool of cotton thread and a small portion of ether and chloroform, Miss Maria P. Kouroyen, an American ICed Cross nurse, performed per-formed a life-or-death operation here as tho result of which and her other errands of mercy she has come to be known as "the American angel" by t lie homeless and starving Greek re"fu:' gees. Born of Greek parents. Miss Kouroyen Kouro-yen is a graduate) nurse of (he Massachusetts Massa-chusetts general hospital in Boston. Because of her knowledge of Greek the American Kcd Cross sent her to Macedonia, Mace-donia, where typhus, smallpox and cholera tread on each other's heels and where the refugees bury their dead beneath be-neath the dirt floors of their shell-shattered shacks so that the bread cards of tho dead member of their family shall not be taken up. A Greek soldier, one of whose legs had been crushed, was brought to the boxcar on a railroad siding in which Miss Kouroyen was living. Something had to be done for him at once. Miss Kouroyen spent no time in talking. talk-ing. Borrowing a razor from Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Abner J. Cobb of. Denver, Colo., an American Red Cross field worker, who was shaving by candlelight in the boxcar, box-car, Miss Kouroyen anaesthetized her palient with her small supply of ether and chloroform and performed an amputation, am-putation, using cotton thread to "tie off" the arteries aud veins. Despite the prophecj- of a local doe-tor doe-tor that the aged patient would not live through the night. Miss Kouroyen some time later received a visit from her patient, lie had an American artificial arti-ficial limb made for him in the American Ameri-can Ked Cross artificial log factory for Greek war mutilo.s in Athens.