WHERE DOCTORS DIFFER.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 November 1922, Page 6

WHERE DOCTORS DIFFER.

CAPTAIN AIALING AND HIS SCALDED LEGS. (By Captain Gilbert Alair, N.Z.C.) It was my good fortunate when in command of* the Arawa Flying Column No. 1 to have attached to me Mounted Sergeant Christopher Maling, who won the New Zealand Cross by an act of striking courage in Taranaki. He had been on a week’s leave, living with a particular mutual friend of ours, a chief of Ngatituara, and one dark night, when Alaling was returning to the chief’s home at Taumataherea, he fell into a boiling spring, and was scalded nearly to his hips. Dr. tlope Lewis, -a medical officer in charge nt Rotorua, was immediately sent for, and insisted that the .sufferer should be taken to a temporary hospital, but his native friends strongly objected, saying that as he was their guest, they were responsible for his well-being, and they wished to treat him after the Afaori fashion, of which they had a wider experience in scalds than any other people living, seeing that for nearly, seven hundred years their ancestors had lived practically in hot water. Dr. 'Hope Lewis insisted on using the ordinary European methods. The natives strongly objected to it. and at last a compromise was arrived at by which Maling’s right leg was to be treated Maori fashion, and a member of the Roval College of Surgeons, London, was to use his skill in dealing with the left leg. which he immediately proceeded to do ip’ iq ving it out on lint and saturating it with lime and linseed oil. The natives immediately disnatched two old women in a canoe to Hinemoa s Point, some three miles away, where, in a deep lagoon in the middle of a swamp, thev were in the habit of procuring a jet black kind of mud. containing much oxide of iron, which they generally used for dyeing the borders of their flax mats. The pond was some thirty feet deep, and the mode of procuring the mud was for the women to swim to the middle of the pool, one with a Afaori ealabash, while the other dived down, bringing up as much of the liquid mud as she could hold in her clasped hands. This was repeated until the desired quantity was obtained. Hurrying oaek to the bedside of the sufferer, the mud ‘ was poured into a wooden trough, and thoroughly manipulated with .a stone , pe<stal, pounding up any lumps into im- • palpable mud. The leg was laid on a • strip of calico on a layer of plantain ! leaves, and the mud bailed over it at J intervals, eventually covering it evenly, 5 and totally excluding the air.

The patient described the mud as most soothing and cool, alleviating all pain, which could not be said of the oil and linseed treatment. The doctor dressed his limb every dav, but about the third or fourth day the Afaori leg (as we shall now call it) became dry and threatened to crack, which the Afaoris said Avas an indication it should be moved, and it would be necessary to "put the patient in a warm hath. Dr. Lewis furiously objected, declaring that bis patient should not be touched with hot water, so Alaling was then gently lifted on a kauhora. or Maori stretcher, and carried to a famous bathing pool called Okahukura. and the limb allowed to he covered with the warm water, and by bathing the mud came away, leaving the skin perfectly clean, and signs of granulation had already set in. The same process was gone through, and a fresh coating of mud applied. I cannot say how many times dhe process was repeated, but in less than two weeks it was quite evident that the leg treated in the Afaori fashion would be the first healed, and so it proved. At the end of five weeks it, was perfectly well, and it was a case then of waiting for the other leg.

Suffice to say that about two months afterwards the men of Captain Preese’s No. 2 Flying - Column challenged No. 1 to a football match, which took place on the famous Pukeroa Hill, when Afaling became the hero of the day, outstripping all the others, and obtaining several tries and kicking a goal or two. The excitement amongst the Afaoris was immense, and whenever Afaling made a good run shouts of delight went up: “Kuril te Maori waewae!” (“Good on the Maori leg: give him the Maori log ewery taima!”) Afy esteemed friend. Dr. Lewis, 'though bitterlv 'disappointed at being i outpointed by ignorant savages, was too much of a sport to show it. and applauded Afa.ling’s efforts as loudly as anyone.—Auckland Star.