Twin Skins

The doctors who were caring for Pfc. Leo Kijowski at Brooke General Hospital in San Antonio well knew that skin from an identical twin is as good as a patient's own for repairing burns by skin graft. The trouble was that the doctors had no idea that Leo Kijowski, seared in a battlefield explosion on the Korean front, had such a handy relative.

Patient Kijowski had lain swathed in pressure bandages for seven weeks, when he overheard a conversation: a doctor was explaining to a patient in the next bed that skin from any donor can be used for temporary grafts, but that it eventually sloughs off. For a permanent graft, only unburned skin from the patient's own body will do--or, added the doctor, skin from an identical twin. "Doctor," interrupted Leo Kijowski, "I've got a twin."

The Army checked its records and found that, sure enough, Twins Leo and Leonard Kijowski of Ford City, Pa. had been drafted together, trained together and shipped together to Korea. Leonard Kijowski, still serving up front with the 32nd Infantry, was ordered home, to temporary duty at Brooke Hospital.

There, last week, the twins lay on operating tables placed side by side. Under spinal anesthesia, Leonard watched the surgeons use a dermatome (which looks and sounds like a malignant electric shaver) to remove six strips of skin, each about 3 by 9 inches, from his thighs, and graft them on to Leo's left leg. It took 3 1/2 hours.

Even after 14 blood tests, doctors still cannot be sure whether Leo and Leonard are identical or fraternal twins. They will know in about three months: if the grafts have not sloughed off by then, they can be considered permanent. If not, Leo's cure will take months longer, while the surgeons wait for him to grow enough new skin on unburned parts of his body to supply permanent grafts.

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