Operation of the Week

No doctor was aboard when a sailor on a U.S. submarine was stricken with acute appendicitis somewhere in the South Pacific. But a member of the crew--the chief pharmacist's mate--had once witnessed an appendectomy. "It was operate or certain death," wrote Lieut. Franz Hoskins to his family in Tacoma (Wash.) last week, "for the patient's temperature was 106DEG." So, with the help of the ship's commander and two machinist's mates, Lieut. Hoskins administered the anesthetic and the pharmacist's mate bravely cut open the patient, located and removed his appendix, stitched him up again. "It took us two and a half hours," wrote Hoskins, "and the patient is now convalescing in great shape."

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