NO ANAESTHETIC

Hokitika Guardian, 21 July 1932, Page 3

NO ANAESTHETIC

AMAZING SYDNEY OPERATIONS

ENDURANCE OF PAIN

•SYDNEY, July 18

Medical men in Sydney give the palm for Spartan courage to Will am Crawford, 72, a native of Tre’and, who not long ago endured a painful abdominal operation while he remained perfectly conscious. Only on rare occasions has such a surgical feat been attempted without anaesthetics, and although the old man exhibited signs of mental strain for som e days after the operation, die quickly regained his normal health, and is now “up and about.”

Mr Crawford .is a man of deep religious fervour, a strict teetotaller, and a non-smoker. He refused an anacs:hetic when he became ill, but ■apart from that the doctors were prompted by the man’s age to perform the operation without’chloroform. . A local anaesthetic was applied of course, and the, man was given morphia, but for an hour and three quarters he lay on the operating table fully conscious of all the doctors were doing. He said he felt little more thin a “dragging sensation.” When he returned to' the, ward -he greeted •his daughter, and osked her to assure his people at home that lie was all ’ right. ' At another hospital a woman, Mrs Wolkowski, of Mosman, underwent an operation similar to that performed on Mr Crawford, and she, too, refused to;take-a general anaesthetic. She said 1 she could appreciate the wonderful nerve displayed by Mr Crawford, for ’her experience was one that she would never, forget. Her eye 3 were covered and jfche doctors impressed upon- her the need for keeping perfectly still. She felt nothing more than a painless dragging sensation and a' rushing of blood, which occasioned a great mental strain. She did not attempt to look at the doctors, yet she -knew all the time whit they 'were doing. .She was in the operating ' theatre for ah hour, but it see.mel like many hours to her.