MIRACLE OF SURGERY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 701, 29 November 1933, Page 2

MIRACLE OF SURGERY

ARTIST'S LIFE SAVED BY CLEVER BRITISH DOCTORS. PREPARED FOR DEATH. A secret tragedy which threatened to cloud the life of a famous artist has, s,a.ys the Sunday C'hronicle, been averted by the combined skill of 12 of Britain's eleverest doctors. The artist is Mr. G. R. W, Nevinson. Last summer his medical advisers took such a grave view of his case that they advised him to make his will and settle up his affairs. "You see in me a living miracle of modern British surgery," Mt. Nevinson said on October 7. "To face life again after preparing for death' is an extraordinary experience. A year iago I fell i-ll with an abscess on the lung, peritonitis and all sorts of com- • plications. "Altogether I suffered a series of five serious bouts of illness and one operation. But -it was not unfil a final X-ray examination was made that it was discovered that I had an extremely rare internal complaint. I did not make the recovery my doctors had hoped for, and at last one of the specialists who had my case in hand was foreed to tell me that there was no hope of a certain operation on which we had been relying being successful. Om the day I was • told this I went into my studio and painted one of the best piotures I have produced for years. "Th'en I made my will, settled up my business affiairs-Hthe papers are all properly filed in this cabinet — and even wrote my own obituary. After that I sat down to wait for death. You see, I did not mind the thought of death at all. Artists, in my opinion, should leave the world when they become 45 or 50. An aged artisit is a piteous sight. "Perhaps it was because my heart was at rest, my nerves quiet, perhaps the combined skill of those wonderful doctors inevitably had some effect, but after a week or two I began to feel better. • "The .attacks of agony became less frequent. Now I have been more thari a month without an attack at all, and I am told that with constant care and treatpient I shall defeat the death that was stalking me. '"But I have a few more years of work before me, and for that I am glad. I would like to pay a tribute to the miraculous skill and knowledge of our modern doctors. Thanks to them, I am facing life again."