BUSH SURGERY.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1917, Page 6

BUSH SURGERY.

A PLUCKY PATIENT AND OPERATOR.

A Sydney Bulletin contributor supplies the following Inle of grit and mateship:— When one of the Darcys was hurt !;t Hall's Creek in the. Far Nor'-West of Australia, his brothers Walter and Thomas started out on the night of August 1 from Wyndham, 250 miles, to puccour him. At 140 miles, Turkey Creek, they changed horses, and covered the last 110 miles in lj hours. This :-ide was done without blankets and with little food. They found their brother in a critical position from a fall from a horse. There wa s no doctor within a thousand miles, yet the only hope was in immediate operation. They mired Perth (1822 miles), and arranged for a doctor to leave on a boat on August 9. In the meantime Mr. Tuckett, the postmaster at Hall's Creek, cut with a razor, directed by telegraph from Perth. Each Iday, at a {riven time, the doctor vent to Perth 0.'P.0. and exchanged Messages I with ti.c postmaster who was saving a man's life at Hall's Creek. Small incisions being found of no avail, a more serious operation was performed by telegraphic direction. Morphia for anaesthetic. Candy's crystals to keep the wound asceptic, and a razor in the hands of a layman for an operation on a distended bladder following rupture of the urethra! The patient is progressing well. Another doctor has taken the seat by the telegraphic key, while the one who was formerly in charge goes north. The pluck of brothers who acted as tha Darcys did- can be merely mentioned alongside the pluck of him who would dare to treat a man for his life with only the rudest appliances to aid him. But what do you think of the man who suffered that series of operations a little morphia?