A GREAT SURGEON.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 11 December 1923, Page 4

A GREAT SURGEON.

The Empire is the poorer by the death of Sir Frederick Treves. Before the day on which the news was flashed round the world that King Edward had been operated on, and the Coronation had been postponed, few people had heard of Frederick Treves, and probably not many more knew the word ''appendicitis.' . The disease became fashionable and the surgeon famous on the same day. It is on record that Sir Frederick found his patient difficult, and that it was only when with tears in his eyes he told him that if lie did not consent to the operation there would be no Coronation because there would be no King, that the King gave way. The operation made Sir Frederick Treves world-famous, and had he wished he could have amassed an immense fortune by his surgery. If we remember rightly, however, he chose, while still in his prime, to give up regular work —he was tired, he said, of operating all day and every day—and spend a good deal of time travelling and writing. He wrote several text-books on surgery, but as a writer he is known to" a much wider public ag the author of "The Other Side of the Lantsrn," "The Cradle of the Deep," "The Land That is Desolate," and "The Country of the Ring and the Book," the last an interesting link between a great surgeon and a great poet. He was one of the considerable band of British doctors, from Sir Thomas Browne to Robert Bridges, the present Poet Laureate, who have combined letters with healing, to the delight of a wide audience.