YOUR HEALTH - MEDICINE 101

SURGICAL STAPLES

In 1862 an inventor named Charles McGill had a bright idea. At the time, if you wanted to hold a sheaf of papers together in the office, you had to fold them or sew them together in one corner with a needle and thread.

McGill changed that by inventing the stapler – and 100 years later, surgeons modified his invention to hold together pieces of bowel, to seal blood vessels and even to suture the skin.

Let me show you what I mean. This is the bowel from a pig, but it looks much the same as ours. If you have a bowel disease surgeons may have to remove segments – but the bowel has to be reconnected so that the intestinal contents can continue to flow (like this)

The classic method of reconnecting the two pieces of bowel is suturing – slowly and methodically using a needle and thread to sew the two edges together . However that takes a long time and there’s a serious risk of bleeding and leakage. So, in the sixties a Russian surgeon invented another way. He used a modifier stapler to insert rows of staples like this. The staples aren’t your office variety – they are made of Titanium. It’s a strong metal that doesn’t react in tissues. With the surgical gun, like this, the entire process of inserting the staples takes only a few seconds – watch. This effectively stops bleeding, prevents complication and cuts down considerably on operating time. The staples remain in place and can easily be seen on an X-ray.

Also, staples are used to close the skin. Traditionally the skin was closed by stitching or suturing. A small piece of nylon or silk is attached to a needle, which is pushed through both edges of the skin and then tightened to close the wound. A stapler does the same thing with Titanium staples like this. It is fast, causes little irritation or infection and closes the wound well. Unlike an office staple, surgical skin staples aren’t completely closed, so they are easy to remove, like this.

So there you have it. Surgery done with simple office equipment. Now that I think about it – I wonder if I could take out an appendix using only this rubber band?