Mr W.H. Bremner Was Distinguished Surgeon

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30764, 31 May 1965, Page 14

Mr W.H. Bremner Was Distinguished Surgeon

Mr Walton Howorth Bremner, an honorary consulting surgeon and former director of surgery to the North Can terbury Hospital Board, died suddenly in Christchurch on Saturday evening. He was 63. Mr Bremner, the sbn of the late Mr J. R. Bremner, a Dunedin merchant, attended the Otago Boys’ High School and the Otago Medical School. He came to Christchurch as a house surgeon at the Christchurch Hospital after his graduation in 1924. In 1926 Mr Bremner went overseas for post-graduate

study am, experience, gaining the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (England) m 1927 when only 25. He worked in Vienna, Brno (Czechoslovakia). King’s Lynn < England), and elsewhere in I urope before returning to New ’ealand in 1930. Back in Christchurch. Mr r ,-mner was appointed imme ciate’y to the honorary surgi-l

cal staff of the Christchurch Hospital, being promoted to senior honorary surgeon in 1935 at the age of 33. About then, too, he became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

During World War 11 he joined the Army, but a critical shortage of surgeons at the hospital resulted in his being recalled the next month. In 1950, Mr Bremner visited Britain and the United States, bringing back among other things a new technique in thyroidectomy (removal of the thyroid) from the Lahey Clinic in Boston. About the same period he performed the first resection of a carcinoma of the oesophagus (cancer of the throat) ever carried out in Christchurch. Mr Bremner was chairman of the combined medical staff of the North Canterbury Hospital Board in 1959-60, and director of surgery to the board in 1960-62. About 1960 he carried out the first resection in Christchurch ot an abdominal aortic aneurysm (dilation of the main abdominal artery). In 1961 he went lon another overseas trip, visiting clinics and hospitals in Britain and America, and also archaeological and historical sites in Greece in pursuance of a life-long interest in that country.

After reaching 60, the compulsory retiring age for hospital visiting staff, Mr Bremner put all his time into his private practice and continued to be extremely busy up to the time of his death. He carried out his last operation on Saturday morning. He has two main hobbies, history and gardening. In 1926. Mr Bremner married Dr Gladys Macalister, of Invercargill. He is survived by his wife and two sons, Mr J. M. Bremner. a Christchurch surgeon, and Mr W. M. Brem(ner, a Wellington engineer.