A CASE IN WHICH SEVEN SPECIALISTS FAILED.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9879, 9 November 1897, Page 2

A CASE IN WHICH SEVEN SPECIALISTS FAILED.

■ < . NINE MONTHS' AGONY IN THE MELBOURNE HOSPITAL.

DR. WILLIAMS' PINK PILLS FOR PALE PEOPLE TO THE RESCUE. (From the Melbourne Advocate.) Dave Kirk, the well-known and highlypopular horo of the cycle track, was, on the Bth October of last year, training in the Scotch College Grounds, Melbourne, when, all of a midden, and without any warning, the tyro o f tho loader broke, and becoming nt once eiuangled in the wheel, brought the rider to the ground with terrific force. So great was the impact that not a single limb or member of the unfortunate cyclist's frame escaped striou.s injury. In all haste tho victim >vas removed to the Melbourne Hospital, more dead than alive, and quite unconscious from sh;-ck and hemorrhage. A haaty examination of the patient by the medical staff of that institution showed them thut the c»*e wa.s a most serious one, and the grave looks of the surgeons in attendance plainly indicated that they entertained but the slightest hopes of the unfortunate young man's recovery. All that the resources of that iully-plenished hospital could command wore brought into play for the relief of the patient, but the gravest fears were felt as* to his ultimate safety. Tho external injuries were not, after all, the most serious—the symptoms of serious internal injury to the nervous system were j all too patent to the practisedand expert eye of the medical faculty. So serious, indeed, was the case of Dive Kirk considered, thac an eminent surgeon who called to see the patient declared it as his opinion that the patient would, in all probability, never rise from hia sick bed. There poor Dave lay, betwixt life and death, for about seven I weary and exceedingly trying months of j pain and suffering, unable to stir hand or foot, unoble to move even from side to side —a victim of hemorrhage, spinal disease, pleurisy, dysentery, complete paralysis oi the body, and last, but by no means least, locomotor atixy, a fearful complaint, which utterly proetratoa the human frame and destroys the power of the will; ao much so that the common functions of nature are performed by a power absolutely extraneous to the will. An idea of tho dreadful injuries sustained by the patient ipay be gathered from tho following details gleaned from Kirk by our representative.

Hi<3 left heel had to he removed, and 32 stitches were inserted in that part of his foot, 18 being placed in the right lesj. The kneecap was smashed aud had lo be lifted. Altogether seven surgeons had to do with the sufferer, who was reduced to a very weak and almost comatose state after nine operations had been performed on him. Mortification set in in parts of the lower limbs, and artificial mean.* had to be employed to draw off the urine. The system was washed internally four times every day with water and carbolic acid, the stomach being cleaned out by means of a tube. Injections were also largely employed. This I was a most singular csiae, and one which j must have afforded ample play for the physicians' skill and experiment, vet it reI mained for Dr. Williams' Pink Pills to effect j a radical and complete cure.