FACIAL INJURIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20042, 14 September 1939, Page 7

FACIAL INJURIES

AIR RAID DANGERS SPECIAL HOSPITALS IN U.K. WAR OFFICE PLANS READY ABERDEEN, Aug. 3. Skilled plastic surgeons will staff special hospitals which the War Office plans to set up to deal with the rush of casualties suffering from severe facial injuries expected in the event of air raids. This was revealed by Mr. A. PI. Mclndce. consulting plastic surgeon to the Royal Air Force, in a paper read here to-day to a crowded audience of surgeons and doctors in the surgery section of the British Medical Association conference. “To-day, as the result of the motcr car, many people suffer severe facial injury,” sakl Mr. IVlclndoe. “To-mor-row, as the result of war, this problem will probably be intensified.” Emergency measures planned by the War Office aimed at minimising the terrific amount of work which would fall upon surgeons in the event of war. A number of special hospitals already had been set up. Remarkable instances of successful plastic surgery operations on victims of air crashes and car accidents were mentioned by Mr. Mclndoe, who showed lantern slides depicting various methods of repairing facial wounds. IVoman’s Nose Accident He referred to the case of a woman who, in an accident, had a piece torn out of her nose. She took the piece to hospital in a bottle. It was sewn back into place 30 hours after the accident, with complete success. Professor Sir John Ledingham, director of the Lister Research Institute, London, declared that progress in immunisation against diphtheria has been impeded by “doltish prejudice fostered by anti-social societies posing as protagonists of liberty.”

“Before we can embark^ seriously on well-planned campaigns -against diphtheria and whooping cough,” he said, “one stumbling block has to be got rid of—many public health authorities cannot afford, or are not sufficiently alive to the necessity for training whole-time bacteriologists on their staffs for these campaigns. “Health Dictators" “Through ignorance, vested interest and complacency in high places, I sometimes despair of getting preventive science across. If a move were made to make diphtheria immunisation compulsory, the remark probably would be made that the Government cannot move in advance of public opinion.

“In reply to that I would say that the present time of national stress is rather favourable to a change in this policy and to imposing on people what is good for them if they are unable to look after themselves. That may sound rather a totalitarian policy, but I suggest that it is entirely democratic. It involves quite a negligible sacrifice on the part of the individual for the common good. “But we have to educate our legislators first.”