A visit with Professor Davide Giordano at Venice / [Max Thorek].

  • Thorek, Max, 1880-1960.
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A visit with Professor Davide Giordano at Venice / [Max Thorek]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/12
    A Visit with Professor Davide Giordano at Venice* By MAX THOREK, M.D., Chicago, Illinois Surgeon-m-Chief, The American Hospital. I HAD made up my mind that, during my last visit to Europe, in August this year, I would not visit hospitals and doctors, or bother about anything pertain¬ ing to medicine. I was tired and needed a rest. After nearly a quarter of a cen¬ tury of arduous labor in the surgical harness one does need a rest. We arrived in Venice on a beautiful 0 August morning. True to my resolve, I jumped into a gondola and was off for Lido to loaf on the sands of the Adriatic shore, to meditate, to reminisce and to think. I adhered to my resolution for the first few days. How¬ ever, one * morning, arising at six and ready to don pyjamas for a stroll on the shore, an admonishing voice somewhere in my subconscious spheres obtruded it- s e 1 f with, ‘‘What! You here within fif¬ teen minutes of the great Giordano’s work¬ shop, missing the work of his nimble fingers, forgetting his stimu¬ lus, his inspirations, and you not even visiting him? Shame on you!” What a silly urge, I argued with my in- ' Pmf* Davide Giordano visible ego, I am here to rest and not to visit clinics or medical celebrities. How¬ ever, the urge spoke persistently again and again, more emphatically, more temptingly, and let me confess that less than a quarter of an hour passed before that very same urge of my subconscious self got a ham- mei-lock and half Nelson on me, and a few moments later I rudely yanked Philip, my son, out of a peaceful slumber and we were soon on the steamer on our way to the Ospedale Civile in Venice, all resolutions being cast to the four winds. This hospital, built in the Thirteenth Century, opened, in those distant days, so a tablet informs us, to four charity pa¬ tients, and now houses about 1,500 to 2,000 patients! What a thrill as I ascended the old stairway! My heart was palpitating before I reached the sixth floor, where Giordano’s operating suite is located, not due so much to the brisk ascent of the stairway as to the thought of being face to face with the great in a few master moments. We arrived in the operating room promptly at seven o’clock There he was before us, as usual, stalwart, radiant, with a benign smile upon his patriarchal face as he ejaculated, “Thorek! You here? I am delighted to see you.” For the moment nothing else was said. The sisters slipped gowns on both Philip and me and we ap¬ proached the operat¬ ing table. Brilliant Technic Giordano was per¬ forming a gastroenter¬ ostomy. The stomach had just been de¬ livered, an ulcus duodeni located, and with a, “We shall do a posterior gastro-jejun- ostomy” he proceeded. I was amazed! One suture was used in the entire operation and that of catgut alone! He approximated the serosa of the stomach to the jejunal serosa; returned the same stitch to the starting point, grasping in it the serosa and muscularis. A stoma was now made in both stomach and jejunum. Next, returning, with the same stitch, he ♦Read at the meetin.tr of the Staff of the American Hospital, Chicago, October 25, 1927. united all the divided structures of the