Dr. Z. F. Vaughn, well known in medical and scientific circles,
has perfected a process for tempering to the hardness of steel
the ductile metals, gold, silver and copper. Already Dr. Vaughn
is manufacturing a large number of gold-bladed scalpels, probes,
hypodermic and suture needles and other surgical instruments.
These are replacing similar articles of steel.
The sharp edge of a gold blade is almost perfectly smooth; that
of steel, no matter how fine the edge, is rough and saw-like.
Because it is porous, the steel blade has never made a perfect
surgical instrument. In the meshes of that metal may be hidden
the infinitesimal germs of a virulent disease, or there may be a
rust spot so tiny that it could not be discerned by the surgeon,
but which might be sufficient seriously to poison the tissues in
which the knife makes a wound, resulting in blood-poisoning that
would cause death. In gold, being dense, this danger does not
exist, and gold does not rust.
Besides, the gold blade divides evenly the flesh or tissue which
it cuts; the steel blade really saws or tears its way through.
Therefore, even when there is no infection, the wound made with
a steel instrument does not heal nearly so readily as that made
with gold. Another feature of a gold blade is that the wound
which it makes leaves no scar.
(1645)