Matas Medal

Top surgical salute in the U. S. is Boston Surgical Society's Bigelow Medal, an honor for achievement in general surgery, which in 1926 went to New Orleans' grand old Surgeon Rudolph Matas for the operative treatment of aneurisms (TIME, Nov. 15, 1926). Last week Dr. Matas, 73, found himself presenting a similar gold medal for similar accomplishment.

The medal bore his own plump-cheeked, spectacled features in relief. Present, too, were the four asterisks which Dr. Matas inserts at the end of every topic in his medical writings to indicate that the topical "cow has been milked dry." Donor of the Matas Medal is Mike Sam Hart, big-boned, generous New Orleans Jew whose family grew rich in New Orleans public utilities. Mike Hart's late sister, Violet Ida Hart, singer, was long a Matas patient. Her dying wish: "We must do something big for Dr. Matas, something that really will show our appreciation for him."

The Matas Medal: to be awarded now & then by a self-perpetuating board of four Tulane University surgeons for contributions to the surgery of blood vessels.

First recipient of the Matas Medal was Professor Mont Rogers Reid of the University of Cincinnati, who advanced the Matas technique in vascular surgery.

In surgery Dr. Matas has been protean. He was one of the first to use local anesthesia. He invented a splint for broken jaws and aluminum binders for bulging arteries. He discovered safe ways of operating in the cavities of the chest and sure ways of testing for blocked circulation in fingers and toes.

Probably the boldest procedure which Dr. Matas devised is the Matas Operation. Under some conditions an artery will blow up like a toy balloon. Its walls grow paper thin. This is an aneurism which any rough usage or surgery is apt to burst. Dr. Matas conceived the plan of opening the blood filled sacs, stitching the walls together like a seamstress taking in a pleat, and leaving the artery with a normal sized bore.

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