The Preservation of Tissues and Its Applications in Surgery

I. INTRODUCTION Six years ago, at the Rockefeller Institute, I began to investigate how tissues isolated from the organism could be preserved and used after a few days or weeks as grafts. I wished to find a method by which tissues, extirpated from the amputated limb of a living animal or a fresh cadaver, could be stored during the period which elapses between their extirpation and their transplantation on the patient. It would be very convenient for the surgeon to keep in store pieces of skin, periosteum, bone, cartilage, blood-vessels, peritoneum, omentum and fat, ready to be used. I attempted to preserve the tissues outside of the organism in a condition of latent or active life. A tissue is in latent life when its metabolism becomes so slight that it can hardly be detected, and also when its metabolism is completely suspended. Latent life means, therefore, two different conditions—