A FAMOUS SURGEON

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 37, 13 February 1930, Page 23

A FAMOUS SURGEON

SIR FREDERICK TREVES A dramatic story of how the late Sir Frederick Treves, the great surgeon,' saved, the life of a millionaire's baby when eleven other doctors had failed, is told, says the London "Daily Chronicle," by Mr. Newman Flower in "The Dorset Year Book" for 1929, published in England recently. The child was at the point of death. The father had called in all the best doctors in London.: They were mystified. The child was dying—but of what? They sent for Treves. When he arrived there, were eleven doctors in the room, and not one of them knew what was the matter. Treves examined the child, and,-like these other doctors, he could not diagnose the cause. . . He examined the child again. Then he observed a minute dark spot,_ not as large as a pin's head. He announced he must operate at once. Ho began that operation, cutting away towards the heart. Then he made a quick jab with his fingers and pulled out—a needle. The nurse, fond of the baby, had cuddled it to her in affection, and the needle, which was stuck in her apron, had penetrated to the child's heart. Treves told Mr. .Flower that the baby girl lived to get married. Sir Frederick Treves also related the following poignant story: — When young Roberts (son of Lord Koberts) was mortally wounded at the battle of Colcnso, and lay dying inside his tent, I sat at tho flap of the tont door all through the night. We talked to each other through that tent door for hours on end. He asked me what I thought of life after death. We talked like that for hours. He was convinced that he was going to live again, and his voice grow lower and lower, till his words became just whispers out of tho darkness of the tent. We seemed to have linked hands as we talked, and I always feel that he just slid out in my hands. A manuscript of Sir Frederick Treves's reminiscences which he lent to Mr. Newman Flower reveals King Edward as a great figure of courage, who fought his doctors io go to his coronation, though he was ill, and had to be operated on, and so keep faith with the British people:— King Edward had hidden his malady in order that the public should not be alarmed. The doctors and nurses went to Windsor numbered, and not by name, so that the arrival of these medical people should not be known. Treves was "Number Six,'.' and he used to go to Windsor in a tweed cap and a tweed suit, and get off at the station before Windsor and walk the rest of the way. "When I read this manuscript," says Mr. "I realised the pluck of tho King, who, against tho advice of his doctors, eamo into London, bowing in agony to the crowds that applauded him."