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Show Surgeon's New Stitcher Like Fishpole and Reel ST. LOUIS. A new surgical stitching stitch-ing instrument demonstrated to the American Hospital association looks like a sawed-off fishpole, bearing a reel near the handle and a hook on the other end. The reel contains suture material which feeds into the hooklike surgical needle. With a twist of the wrist the operator can insert the needle in the wound and make a stitch. Developed by a sewing-machine company, the instrument already i has proved successful in clinical trials. tri-als. Surgeons said it conceivably could lessen the duration of operations opera-tions by simplifying the technique of stitching and allow the employment employ-ment of new stitches according to the ingenuity of the surgeon. Exhibitors Ex-hibitors said some surgeons in the armed forces already are using the instrument. Methods of suturing now widely used employ needles threaded at the shank end like a darning needle. The needle must be held with a clamp, inserted in the wound and then pulled entirely through to the other side with another clamp. The new instrument contains a needle threaded through two holes near the sharp end. It is inserted only far enough to allow the loop of thread to be caught on the ,other side. Thread is released from the reel by a touch of the surgeon's thumb, thus eliminating the time-consuming time-consuming threading of needles after aft-er each stitch. m |