CURRENT LITERATURE.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 July 1923, Page 4

CURRENT LITERATURE.

.V SURGEON’S REMINISCENCES.

Sir I'njdcricK Treves is not only an eminent surgeon, whose patients include members of the Royal family; he is also a writer-of distinction with a shelf full of hooks to his credit. “The Elephant Man” contains reminiscences of his professional career and essays on medical and scientific sublets. The title relates to ail unfortunate man. the nature of whose dcfoiniity is indicated hy his nickname, lie was a monstrosity. grotesquely, misshapen, crippled, and inarticulate, who was exhibited in an East End peepshow just opposite a hospital in which Sir Frederick Treves was lecturer in anatomy. He examined Merrick, as this wretched creature was called. The author had supposed that he would be imbecile; ids physical disabilities were latch as to suggest that his mental development must inevitably have been arrested. But Sir Frederick found him to he highly intelligent, sensitive, acutely conscious of his repulsive np- j p.earanee, and cursed with a romantic , imagination. That, indeed, was the ; overwhelming tragedy of Merrick’s life. ! Subsequently the police forbade the exhibition; his “keeper” "took him to the Continent, and Sir Frederick lost sight of him. In Brussels the authu- • ritics prohibited the degrading show, I and the showman callously turned Mor- : rick adrift. The latter managed to get back to London, cowed, helpless | and degenerate. By a lucky chain o he had" kept Sir Frederick’s visiting card and this proved his salvation. ; Eventually through tee interest of the j author and some other sympathisers, ; fie was given an asylum in the hospital. where he spent the rest of his life in comfort and contentment.

Another essay describes an East End hospital fifty years ago, and a grim place it was! The spick and span operating theatre of our days was nonexistent-. Rain was a thing to tic endured, not relieved. Antiseptics were not yet in use, and sepsis was the prevailing condition in the ward, “’lliere was no object in being clean. Indeed, cleanliness was out of place. It was considered to lie finicking and aflected. ...u executioner might as well manicure his nails before chopping oif a head. Tile surgeon open ted ill a slaughter-liottso-siiggesiiug truck coat cd blade cloth. It was stiff with the blood and tlie filth of years. The more sodden it was the more forcibly did it bear evidence to the surgeon’s prowess.” 1 ’radically all major wounds suppurated, and the wards were devastated by hospital gangrene. » disease o! which the modern student has no knowledge, lb- I. is never seen it and never will see it. ‘T’cnple often say how wonderful u was that surgical patients lived in these day-. As a matter ol tact, they did not live, or at ler.-i only a lew oi l hem.” Lord Roberts, tor example. has put it CO record that on the Ridge at Delhi, during the Indian mutiny not a -mgi*’ case oi ampul at toll recovered.

And with the d'-ap| caraiu e ul the I cbl style of hospital lias passed a remarkable type.' the mid-Yieioi inn muse. ■She appeared its a short, fat. enmfortahio person ot middle age, with a rml.iy face and a decided look oi assurance. She was without education, and yet uer experience of casualties of all kinds from a bee-sting to sudden death was vast and indeed unique. She was entirely self-taught for there were no trained nurses in these days. She was the school of Mrs Gamp, was a woman of courage and infill.te re source, an expert in the treatment ot the violent and the crushing of anyone win) gave her what she called "lip. >he was possessed oi much hnmotii, was coarse in her language, abrupt, yet hot unkindly in her manner, very indulgent towards the drunkard, and very skilled in handling him. She was apt to boast that there was no mail living she would not ‘stand up to.’ She called every male over .1(1 ‘Daddy,’ and vevyoue under that age 'Sonny. S|u_ vouhi tackle a shrieking woman as a terrier tackles a rat, while the woman who 'sained' her she soon reduced to a condition of palsy. She objected to the display of emotion or of feeling in any form, and was apt to speak of members of ! or s'-x as a 'w atery-beaded lot ." ” In discussing the qualifications of a great .surgeon, Sir Frederick Treves remarks Unit brilliancy is not among them. “Brilliancy is nut of place in surgery. Uis pleasing in lhe juggler who plays with knives in the air, blit it muses anxiety in tbo operating ro in.’’ The essential is a combination of delicacy and strength. The surgeon needs a laeenmker’s fingers and a r-ail-til’s grip. Tie must be a master of finesse. Sir Frederick Treves conceives Dim not as a massive Hercules wrestling ponderously with Death lor the hotly of Aleeslis, but as ri nimble man in doublet and hose who, over a prostrate from fights Death with a rapier. What are the sensations of a person at the moment of entering that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns? Sir Frederick

Treves attempts to answer the quest mil in the essay, "lit Artieitlo Mortis. He thinks that in the great majority of eases there is no pain, no wrench, no suffering, no feeling at all—jusf an imperceptible slipping away. The inn(lent- of death may he distressing to the onlooker, hut the dying are hardly aware of them. For in general death involves no violent transition, nor docs if overtake those who are in the fulness of their vigour. It comes gently to those who are worn out with age or illness. It is a falling asleep, the un-eon-ciotts passing out of “a dreamy condition, free of all anxiety, a state of twilight when the familiar landscape of the world is heeoming very indistinct.” The fear of death is an instinct common to all humanity; its counterpart is the instinct of self-preservation, the resolve to live. But it is not due to any fear of pain or distress —death is n release from these. It is "the fear of extinction, a dread of leaving the world with it- loves, its friendships, and it- cheri-hed individual affairs, with perhaps hopes unrealised, and projects incomplete.”