Medicine: Doctor in the House

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Early one morning last week, in East Orange, N.J., four-year-old Tommy Stanley got hold of half an orange. He tried to swallow it, got it stuck in his throat, choked & choked. His father banged him futilely on the back, then yelled for a doctor. Luckily, there was one in the house —Tommy's uncle. Dr. Thomas A. Stanley (a postgraduate surgery student) saw that Tommy was strangling. He seized a kitchen carving knife; there was no time to sterilize it, nor for an anesthetic. While Papa and Mama held Tommy flat on the living room couch, Dr. Stanley swiftly cut open his windpipe, used a safety pin as a spring to keep the hole open. Air reached Tommy's lungs; he began to breathe again. Later, at a hospital, a surgeon finished the job, extracted orange pulp and seeds from Tommy's throat, sewed him up.