Let's say you got a bullet in the stomach. You go to the doctor. He pulls off your pants and starts pumping hydrogen into your ass. And then he sets you on fire. Sounds familiar? Not? Then you went to the wrong doctor.
Let me introduce you to Dr. Nicholas Senna, an American surgeon and founder of the United States Association of Military Surgeons. He was president of the American Medical Association from 1897-1898 and chief surgeon of the Sixth Army Corps during the Spanish-American War in 1898.
During the war, Senn often encountered gunshot wounds to the abdomen of his patients. Without the proper diagnostic tools (X-rays were just beginning to be used in medicine), Senn and his team of doctors could not determine if the penetrating wound was "simple" or complicated by gastrointestinal tract damage. The intestinal damage was not accompanied by any reliable symptoms on the basis of which surgeons could make a positive diagnosis, and the visceral wounds were not visible on a routine physical examination.
Senna came up with the idea that a wound in the intestines can be detected in the same way a specialist finds a leak in a gas pipe. He suggested inflating the intestines with a harmless gas injected into the rectum. The gas, presumably, was supposed to get from the intestines into the abdominal cavity, and from there go out through an external wound, where its presence could be proved using some kind of error-free test. Senn recommended using hydrogen, because it is devoid of toxic properties, does not cause irritation in contact with living tissues and is quickly absorbed by them. In addition, hydrogen could be easily detected by holding a match to it. Setting fire to the abdomen of a wounded soldier was, according to Senna, an effective way to sterilize a wound.
Nicholas Senn first conducted several experiments on dogs. In these experiments, animals were tied to operating tables, anesthetized, and then shot in the stomach at close range with a 32-caliber revolver. Immediately thereafter, a hose was inserted into the animal's rectum, connected to a hydrogen-filled rubber balloon, and the gas was slowly pumped into the intestine. When an open flame was brought to the wound, the escaping gas burst into an even blue flame, indicating that the bullet had pierced the intestines.
Senn conducted experiments on several of his patients to determine the harmful effects (if any) of the introduction of gas into the gastrointestinal tract. Then he decided to test the effect of hydrogen on himself in order to understand the sensations. He describes his experience as follows:
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“Under a pressure of 0.4 kilograms, almost 6 liters of gas were pumped into the rectum. The gas, once in the rectum, simply caused a feeling of bloating, but as soon as it entered the ileum, colicky pains began, which intensified during inhalation and stopped only after all the gas was released, which took place only after an hour and a half. When the intestines and stomach were swollen, the sensations were excruciating and accompanied by weakness, which caused profuse, sticky sweating. Most of the gas was expelled from the body as a result of belching, followed by tremendous relief. Colic, which occurred when the small intestine was distended with gas, was caused by increased peristalsis associated with attempts to get rid of the contents, since it was always intermittent and quickly subsided after the release of gas.
Although the first patient, a 27-year-old black man with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, did not survive, the procedure itself was successful and eventually found application in military surgery to detect intestinal injuries in soldiers. Dr. Senna's methods only became obsolete when X-rays became the standard diagnostic tool.
Nicholas Senn was a pioneer in the field of surgical medicine. He was involved in experimental research in acute pancreatitis, plastic surgery, head and neck oncology, and the treatment of leukemia with X-rays. He strongly supported the operation to remove appendicitis at an early stage, which was not generally accepted practice at that time. He also emphasized the importance of first aid, first introduced into the army by the German surgeon Friedrich von Esmarch in 1870. Senn often quoted a German saying: "The fate of the wounded depends on who puts the first bandage."
