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Dr. Maria Siemionow, director of plastic surgery research at the Cleveland Clinic, who has been preparing to perform a full face transplant, said the way the transplant was conducted appeared to conflate two experimental protocols: the transplantation of facial tissue and the infusion of stem cells from the donor's bone marrow into the patient in an attempt to prevent rejection of the new face. The French doctors said traditional surgery could not have salvaged the woman's face. Dr. Benoit Lengele, a Belgian specialist in facial injuries, and other experts had judged that reconstructive surgery would be 'very difficult, if not impossible' in the patient's case, [Jean-Michel Dubernard] said. Photos: 1. EXAMINATION: A French surgeon examines a woman who was mauled by a dog, leaving her with injuries that made it difficult to speak and eat. She became the recipient of the world's first partial face transplant (p. 10); 2. SURGERY: French surgeons perform the partial face transplant operation at Amiens hospital in northern France (p. 10)

Initially, Dr. Freedberg could not see any bacteria when he used standard chemicals to stain the stomach tissue. But the bacteria stood out when he used a silver stain. He found the bacteria in 13 of 35 patients, or 37.1 percent. So Dr. [Freedberg] wrote a paper describing his findings and The American Journal of Digestive Diseases published it in 1940. In a discussion section, published as a follow-up to Dr. Freedberg's paper, Dr. Frank D. Gorham of St. Louis said that for 10 years he had found that intramuscular injections of bismuth helped heal ulcers. Bismuth was a popular remedy. Dr. Freedberg said he was ''very upset that my findings weren't confirmed'' because it implied that his work was wrong. Also, the inability to grow the bacteria ''bothered me,'' Dr. Freedberg said, because his findings ''had to be important'' for ulcers, which were an important health problem

Shortly after the woman's injury, Dr. Bernard Devauchelle, head of face and jaw surgery at Amiens University Hospital, decided that the woman was a candidate for a partial face transplant and sent an urgent request for help in locating a donor to the French Biomedicine Agency, which oversees the allocation of organs for transplant in France. The window for a successful transplant was narrow, the doctors said, because the wound was developing scar tissue. Dr. [Jean-Michel Dubernard] said he had already injected stem cells from the donor's bone marrow into the patient in an attempt to enhance her body's tolerance of the transplanted tissue. After reviewing successful hand transplants, he theorized that cells produced by the marrow of the donor's hands were the critical element in the operation's success. He added that another ''infusion'' of the donor's bone marrow stem cells would be given to the patient on the 11th day after the transplant. The transplant did not include bone. A woman who received a partial face transplant was taken from the operation in Amiens, as shown in this image released yesterday in Lyon. (Photo by Amiens University Hospital, via Reuters)(pg. A8); A computer-generated image of the face transplant. Colors represent arteries, veins, nerves and muscles. (Photo by Edouard-Herriot and Amiens University Hospitals, via Reuters)(pg. A1)

In an effort to help strengthen her immune system's tolerance to keep another person's facial tissue, the patient received a transplant of bone marrow on Thursday from the same donor, [Jean-Michel Dubernard] said. The transplant went according to a scientific blueprint that Dubernard said he and Bernard Devauchelle, a microsurgeon in Amiens, had agreed on before the operation. On Tuesday, the woman, who lives near Amiens, was transferred to Dubernard's hospital in Lyon. There in 1998, Dubernard performed the first hand-forearm transplant. The recipient, Clint Hallam of New Zealand, did not comply with his prescribed anti-rejection therapy and regular exercises to train the new hand. His transplant was amputated at his request in 2001

Since it was discovered in 1976, the Ebola virus has killed more than 1,200 people in scattered outbreaks in Central Africa, the World Health Organization calculates. But while health workers have managed to contain the outbreaks, scientists have been frustrated that they do not know the virus's hiding place in nature. Now an international team of scientists has found evidence of symptomless Ebola infection in three species of fruit bats, adding to earlier suggestions that they are the likely reservoir

In a brief telephone interview Wednesday, [Jean-Michel Dubernard] said the two surgical teams grafted a nose, lips and chin from a donor who had been declared brain- dead onto the woman's face. Hospital officials said the woman who received the transplant did not wish to be identified. Ethics committees in France and England have rejected proposals to perform full face transplants until more research is done. The committees were concerned about the unknown risks of the long-term use of large doses of immunosuppressive drugs for a procedure that does not save lives. The aim of face transplants is to improve the quality of life for patients who have suffered severe injuries from burns, accidents and shootings, for example. Dubernard said the patient was transferred Tuesday from Amiens to the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon, where Dubernard works, for long-term monitoring of the immunosuppressive therapy that she will need to prevent rejection of the new partial face. The relatively short interval of about six months between the dog bite and the surgery also raised questions in the minds of some experts about what, if any, efforts had been made to perform reconstructive surgery before the transplant. 'The major question is: What were the indications' for the transplant, said Maria Siemionow, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who plans to perform a full face transplant

The recipient of the transplant was a 38-year-old woman who had been severely disfigured after being attacked by a dog, said the surgeon, Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard of Lyon. The operation was carried out in Amiens on Sunday. The woman who received the transplant on Sunday had been attacked by a dog in May. Dubernard said she was transferred Tuesday from Amiens to the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon, where Dubernard works, for long-term monitoring of the immunosuppressive therapy that she will need to prevent rejection of the new partial face. The relatively short interval of about six months between the dog bite and the surgery also raised questions in the minds of some experts about what, if any, efforts had been made to perform reconstructive surgery before the transplant. 'The major question is: What were the indications' for the transplant, said Dr. Maria Siemionow, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who plans to perform a full face transplant

In an effort to help strengthen her immune system's tolerance to keep another person's facial tissue, the patient received a transplant of bone marrow yesterday from the same donor, Dr. [Jean-Michel Dubernard] said. She is also receiving the standard immunosuppressive drugs used with transplants of other tissues and organs. On Tuesday, the woman, who lives near Amiens, was transferred to Dr. Dubernard's hospital in Lyon. There in 1998, Dr. Dubernard performed the first hand-forearm transplant. The recipient, Clint Hallam of New Zealand, did not comply with his prescribed antirejection therapy and regular exercises to train the new hand. His transplant was amputated at his request in 2001. No bone was included in the woman's partial face transplant, Dr. Dubernard said. So, for the bone marrow transplant, he said he removed marrow from her donor before the operation and stored it. The marrow inside bone contains cells that form other cells that play important roles in the body's immune defenses against tissues transplanted from another person