GUINEA PIG CLUB

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21151, 20 July 1943, Page 4

GUINEA PIG CLUB

BADLY BURNED FLIERS

PLASTIC SURGERY FEATS

N.Z. SURGEON'S WORK

(By Telegraph—ProHS Assn.—Copyright.)

(Special Corrciipuml*. at.) LONDON, July IB

One of the most exclusive clubs in Britain to-day is the Guinea Pig Club. Its membership is limited —limited to airmen who have been badly burned, injured and treated at the Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital, the plastic surgery and jaw injuries centre in Sussex which is famous for the treatment given to badly wounded airmen. But for the skilled medical care they received at (his hospital, many would be condemned to the misery of a life of disfigurement—if they recovered from their wounds. Th«* surgeon in charge of this hospital is Mr. A. H. Mclndoe, of Dunedin, the 43-year-old partner of Sir Harold Gillies, of Dunedin. Dr. MeIndoe is consultant of the Royal Air Force and the Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital is the centre to which the airmen come for treatment of jaw fractures, explosive wounds, multiple scars of the face, leg wounds, with skin loss and burns. The Royal Canadian Air Force has established a plastic surgery and jaw injuries unit which is training at the hospital. So successful is the treatment that a high percentage of desperate cases eventually return to active service. At least 40 per cent of the cases arc members of the Royal Air Force, but members of other services and civilians are also ticated, Many aid-raid casualties went to Ihe hospital and also casualties from the Middle East, including members of the New Zealand Expeditionary force.

Lesson From DunkiiK

Dunkirk helped the hospital indirectly. It. Weis observed iliot the wounds of men who slooo in the sea for hours waiting for the boats healed quicker than the wounds of the men who had not. Saline baths vveie introduced from the resulting research and these baths are giving excellent results. „ ~ An important part of the cure is mental for some of the patients lend to become low in spirits, Dr. McIndoc sometimes books a room at an hotel, gets a patient theatre tickets and tells him to spend the' night in town. The patient invariably returns with a happier outlook on life. The hospital has instituted a scheme which is believed to be the first of its kind in England. It is a department of production of aircraft instruments. It has tlie approval of the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the Ministry of Labour and is fully equipped with the finest machinery. It is proving very successful and is expected that the scheme will mark a revolutionary step in hospital life. Dr. Mclndoe left New Zealand m his early twenties and studied at Rochester, Minnesota, where he held a fellowship in surgery at Mayo Foundation and Mayo Clinic. He arrived in England in 1930. holding a James William White travelling scholarship in surgery, in the course of a worldwide visit to surgical clinics. In 1932 he became F.R.C.S., and joined Sir Harold Gillies. Mrs. Mclndoe was formerly Miss Adonia Aitken, of Dunedin. They have two daughters, Adonia, aged 16, and Vanora, aged 12, who recently returned to Britain after two years in the United States. Dr. Mclndoe has won a very high reputation in surgical circles which he has earned by unremitting hard work, threequarters of which was in hospitals.