DOCTORS WHO DIE FOR THEIR PATIENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 104, 29 May 1909, Page 4

DOCTORS WHO DIE FOR THEIR PATIENTS.

Anotlipr mime lm>." just been added to tin l list of doctors iwlki have died for their patient* (say* a Home paper). Angus Wilson, the liouse surgeon »l the l/mdon Hospital, In trying to save tlit life of n poor woman who hod, attempted to commit suicide while HiifTering from a temporary fit of insanity, '.was so severely bitten by her on the ;haml that he contracted blood-poisoning, .with fatal results. DIED FOIt A LITTLE SUFFERER. Similar tragedies happen not infrequently, and always evoke from the public a thrill of pity. One of the saddest cases n't the kind is perhaps that which is commemorated by a tablet in the "Postman's Park," City of London. On 11th October, 1884, a little child of four was brought to the Royal Free Hospital suffering from diphtheria. As the only hope of saving his life, the | operation known as tracheotomy was resorted to. This consists in making an incision in the lower part of the throat, through which air is enabled to pass to i the lungs. i The operation was successful in itself, but in order .to establish respiration, which had been partially suspended, it became necessary that somebody should suck at the tube which had been passe 3 into the windpipe. This dangerous duty I was undertaken by Dr. Samuel Raibbath, | senior resident medical officer at the institution, nvith the result that he himself contracted the terrible coinplaht. I and died soon afterwards. 1 LIVED AMONG THE LEPERS. | For sustained her»ism of this kind, however, continued over a long course of years, the palm must be awarded to j Dr. l)e Venster, better known as Father | Daniien. Although he went to Molokai [—which is the leper colony of the Sandwich Islands—as a medical missionary, his real work lay in doctoring the unfortunates he found there, a duty for which he was fully qualified both by training and practice. Of course he was perfectly well aware, when lie undertook the task, that he could hardly hope to escape infection. Jfor did he, dying of the complaint on 10th April, 1880.