DOCTOR AND KING GEORGE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20037, 8 September 1939, Page 2

DOCTOR AND KING GEORGE

timely action in illness I ■ROBUST COMMON SENSE I NURSE’S STORY Ai "Intimate stories of King Ge V and members of his family are told, by S'ster Catherine Black —“Blackie, as site is affectionately known at Buckingham Palace —in her autobiography. -King’s Nurse, Beggar’s Nurse.” . Sister Black was one of me nurses summoned to the King's bedside in November, 1928. During King'George s serious illness and convalescence her cervices were so valuable that she was •permanently attached to the Royal Household, and tended-.the KW.SJP.h 1 .?. last illness." She reveals that at the most critical stage of the former illness it was Viscount'Dawson of Penn who located the fluid in the lung, in the nick of time. i ‘‘The doctors were unable to locate the abscess which had formed.-. . “ ‘‘One" afternoon the King was so much worse that it was feared he could not live for many hours. i was sitting alone that evening with Mis Majesty when Lord, Dawson came into die room. - '“Will you give me ..a‘syringe?’ he said suddenly.' “I think I will-make-one more try to find that fltud'less than a few seconds he had found the exact place.” , An empyema was then performed, which' was entirely successful. “Not Going Abroad” „ When the time came for convalescence it was- -King George who insisted on staying in England not going abroad,’ he said firmly. •England is good enough for me. I like my own country best, climate or no, and I’m staying in it.’” --On another occasion Nurse Black records him as saying: “I’m not like my father. There’s nothing of the Cosmopolitan in me—l’m afraid Im iQsular." ~ ,she comments on ,the resemblance of the present King to his father, who once said in her presence: “Bertie js not one of those people who put all their goods in the shop-window, but Whatever he does in life he does it well. . . .” "CKing George’s robust common sense iS illustrated by a story which Nurse Slack tells of an alarm at Buckingham Palace; when it was discovered that she had visited Dulwich Hospital and shaken hands with two patients who had soon afterwards developed smallpox. A Robust Retort, One of the King’s physicians said that she must be vaccinated, and that as a precautionary measure it would be wiser for the King to be vaccinated, too. , ... , Nurse Black, knowing the Kings dislike of “fussing,” protested, but the doctor* full of the importance of the occasion, hurried off to inform His Majesty. “He came back considerably deflated. 'What did he say about it?’ I asked a trifle maliciously. ■ The King’s medical adviser cleared his throat. ‘Well,-. • . or . . • er . . ■

■what he actually, said was that there would be time enough .for all that damned nonsense when he or you got smallpox.’ ” „, _'