THE DOCTORS BEATEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1922, Page 11

THE DOCTORS BEATEN.

LORD FREDERIC HAMILTON’S -MOVING STORY. ABOUT A SICK BOY HE TOOK TO SOUTH AFRICA AND NURSED HOME AGAIN. THE ROMANTIC SEQUEL. London, Oct. 7. Lord Frederic Hamilton, in his fascinating book, Here, There, and Everywhere, reviewed last week (Hodder and Stoughton, 15s net.), tells a most remarkable and moving story of a sick boy who would laugh at the doctors in grave illness and who to-day still has reason to laugh at them. The incident is a striking story of What the Will to Get Well will do for a boy determined to ve ’ -v MEETING THE SICK BOY. Lord Frederic tells the story; he says, “for the comfort and better encouragement of those battling with the same disease. . “I first met the sick boy (hereinafter, for the sake of brevity, termed the ‘S.B.’) at the house of one of my oldest friends, who had an annual eri&ketparty for the benefit of his son. Amongst the schoolboy eleven staying in the house was a tall and very thin lad of sixteen, who showed great promise as a bowler. My hostess told me that this boy was suffering from tuberculosis, that he had had to leave Eton at fifteen to undergo a very severe internal operation, from which he had only just recovered, and that when the party broke up he was going straight into a nursing-home to prepare for another equally severe operation. Every time he played cricket he had to be put to bed at once after the match, and to be fed on warm milk. The lad had tremendous pluck; in spite of his weakness he insisted on taking part in the games and amusements of the other boys, and proved very good at all of them.

THREE YEARS AFTER. “Three years later I met the S.B. again. He had spent the interval entirely in sanatoria and nursing-homes, except for a few months at St. Moritz, in the Engadine, and had undergone six major operations, the last one entailing the removal of his left ear, though the external ear had been left. The unfortunate lad, who seemed to have had most of the working ‘spare parts’ of his anatomy removed, was a walking triumph of modern operative surgery, but his disease had clearly made advances. He was then living in an open-air hut at his father’s place, and his condition was obviously critical. “As I was myself going to South Africa, I proposed to his father (he had lost his mother as a child) that the boy should accompany me, pointing out the wonders the dry South African iclimate had effected in similar cases, and the advantages of a long sea-voy-age. So it was settled. As I was fully alive to the responsibilities I was incurring *T took my valet with me, in case additional help should be required. START* FO'ft SOUTH AFRICA. “Billy the S.B. came on 'board, long, 3 |anky, and-pitiably emaciated. His abnormally bright eyes betrayed the progress the disease had made with him. He revived at once in the warmth, and I had considerable difficulty in restraining his super-abundant vitality, for he played cricket all day, and entered himself for every single event in the ship’s sports, regardless of his very narrow available margin of strength. After arriving in Africa, as the S.B. could not have stood the noise and racket of a big hotel, we found most comfortable quarters in a quiet little place in the delightful suburb of Rondebosch. I wished to go up-country, and as it was obvious that the S.B. could never have stood the heat, fatigue and dust of long railway journeys during the height of the South African summer, I found myself in a difficult position. MRS. BOTHA TO THE RESCUE. “Mrs. Botha came to the rescue, and with extraordinary kindness told me to send the S.B. to Groote Schuur, where she would undertake to look after him. I have seldom come across so delightful a family as the Bothas-, father, mother, sons and daughters alike; so fortunate Billy the S.B. was transferred with his belongings to Groote Schuur, where he was immensely elated at being allowed to use Cecil Rhodes’ sumptuous private bath-room. This bathroom was entirely lined with Oriental alabaster; the bath itself was carved out of a solid block of green marble, and the very bath-taps were exquisitely chiselled bronze Tritons, riding on dolphins. When I returned to Capetown I found the S.B. quite one of the Botha family, being addressed by everybody by his Christian name. “When we sailed from South Africa, Mrs. Botha came down to the liner to see that Billy’s cabin was comfortable nd that he had all the appliances he required, such as hot-water bottles, etc., and she presented him with a large parcel of home-made delicacies for his exclusive use on the voyage home. Nothing could have exceeded her kindness to this afflicted lad, of whose very 1 ence she had been unaware months earlier. SUNSTROKE ON BOARD. “Before we had been at sea a week the S.B. managed to get a sunstroke. He grew alarmingly ill, and the ship’s doctor told me that he had developed tubercular meningitis and that his recovery was impossible. I gave the S.B. - a hint as to the gravity of his ease, but the boy’s pluck was indomitable. ‘I am going to sell that doctor,’ he said, ‘for I don’t mean to die now. I have sold the doctors twice already when they told me I was dying, and I am going

to niake this chap look silly too, for I don’t intend to go out/ ‘‘■Soon after he relapsed into unconsciousness. Meningitis affects the eyes, and the poor S.B. could not bear one ray of. light, so the cabin was carefully darkened, and the electrician replaced the white bulbs in the cabin and alleyway with green ones. As we were approaching the Equator the heat in that closed-up cabin was absolutely suffocating, the thermometer standing at over 100 degrees. Still the sick lad felt chilly, and had to be surrounded with hotwater bottles, whilst an ice-pack was placed on his head. I and my valet took it in turns to sit up at nights with him, as every quarter of an hour we had to trickle a teaspoonful of iced milk and brandy into his mouth. SCREAMING FOR BEEF TEA. “As each morning came .rbund, the doctor’s astonishment, at finding his patient still alive was obvious, and he assured me again and again that it could only lje a question of hours. One morning my valet, whose turn as nightnurse it was, awoke me at 4 a.m with the news that ‘Mr. William has come to again, and is screaming for beef tea.’ I went into the cabin, where I found the S.B. quite conscious and insistently demanding beef-tea. By sheer grit and force of will the lad had pulled himself out of the very Valley of the i Shadow. We got him the best substitute for beef-tea to be obtained on a liner at 4.30 a.m., and two hours later he was clamoring for more. His progress to recovery was uninterrupted as soon as we were able to carry him into the open air, his eyes protected by some most ingenious light-proof goggles, cleverly fashioned on board by the second engineer. STRICTLY PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS. “The S.B. had learnt from the doctor of some strictly private arrangements which I had made with the captain of the ship should his disease unfortunately take a fatal turn. I found him one morning rolling about (his bunk with laughter. ‘lt is really the most comical idea I ever heard of in my life,’ he spluttered, shaking with merriment. ‘Fancy carrying me home in the meatsafe!! Just imagine father’s face when you told him that you had got me

down in the refrigerator! I never heard anything so d —d funny,” and as fresh humorous possibilities of this novel form of home-coming occurred to him he grew quite hysterical with laughter. He was immensely amused, too, at learning that during the most critical period of his illness I had got the captain to stop the ship's band and to rope-off the deck under his cabin window. “I will not deny that the S'.B. required a good deal of supervision; for instance, when at length allowed a little solid -food, I found that he had selected as a suitable invalid repast some gamepie and a strawberry ice, which had, pf course, to be sternly vetoed. He had entered, too, for every event in the ship’s sports, and though he was so weak that he could barely stand he had every intention of competing. I have seldom met an > one with such wonderful personal courage as that boy, and he would never yield one inch to his enemy; the strong will was for ever dominating the frail body. THE SICK BOY FLIES. “Upon the outbreak of war in August, 1914,” continues Lord Frederic, “the S.B. made three attemtps to obtain a commission, only to be promptly rejected by the medical officers when they examined him. He then tried to enlist as a private, under a false name, but no doctor would pass him, so he went as a workman, into a small arms factory and made rifle-stocks for a year. The indoor life and the lack of fresh air aggravating his disease, he was forced to abandon this work, when, by some means which I have never yet fathomed, he managed to get a commission in the Royal Air Force. , “The doctors, being much overworked, let him through without a medical examination, and in due time the S.B. qualified as a pilot, when, owing to engine -trouble, he promptly crashed in his seaplane into the North Sea, in January, and was an hour in the water before being rescued. This icy bath somehow arrested the progress of his disease, and he was subsequently sent to the Dardanelles. Here, whilst attempting to bomb Constantinople, the S.B. got shot down and captured by the Turks. During his eighteen months of captivity he underwent the greatest privations from cold and hunger, being insufficiently clad and most insufficiently fed. CURED AND MARRIED. “Upon his release after the Armistice he was examined by a British doctor, who told him, to his amazement, that every trace of his dire disease had vanished, nor were the most eminent specialists of Harley Street .subsequently able to distinguish the faintest lingering signs of tuberculosis. He was completely cured, or. rather, by his strong will-power he had completely cured himself. “Billy (the term of S.B. being clearly no longer applicable) is now married to a pretty and charming wife; he is the proud father of a sturdy son, and is putting on weight at an alarming rate, his waistcoat already exhibiting a convexity of outline that would be justifiable only in the case of an alderman. He is a partner in a prosperous West End business, and will be most happy to book any orders you may give him for wine.”