TRIBUTE TO N.Z. DOCTOR

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27912, 8 March 1956, Page 6

TRIBUTE TO N.Z. DOCTOR

ORTHOPAEDIC WORK IN INDIA TREATMENT OF LEPERS’ DEFORMITIES A tribute to a New Zealand doctor, who it was claimed was making a unique contribution to the conquest of leprosy in India, was paid at the annual meeting of the Mission to Lepers (New Zealand), in Wellington by the secretary (the Rev. Murray Feist). Referring to the work of Dr. W. Stewart Robertson, who was for many years the orthopaedic specialist of the Wellington Hospital Board. Mr Feist said that Dr. Robertson had just been appointed to the Leprosy Home at Purulia, the mission’s biggest home in India, where he was specialising in orthopaedic work for the cure or prevention of foot deformities in cases of leprosy.

Dr. Robertson had been associated for some time with the work of the famous Professor Paul Brand at the Christian medical college and hospital at Vellore in South India, said Mr Feist. Here these two specialists had developed new techniques to prevent hands and feet from becoming crippled by this disease, and even to try to restore to use limbs that had already become useless. The spectacular success of these treatments meant that many patients could now be trained in useful trades and rehabilitated when they were declared “disease arrested and symptom free.” Mr Feist told how one patient had learned to play the violin after life was restored to his hands, and how he now used his fiddle leading community singing among the crowds of patients awaiting their turn at outpatient clinics.

Mr Feist was speaking at the first annual meeting of the mission held under a new constitution. This gives the council in New Zealand considerably more power and responsibility than it held previously. At the meeting the following officers were elected:—

President, the Rev. P. A. Thompson: vice-presidents, the Rev. L. A. North < Wellington), Sir Donald Cameron (Dunedin), the Rev. Canon L. Richards (Christchurch). A council of 21 members representing the whole of New Zealand was also elected.