DOCTOR IN SIAM

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21823, 20 September 1945, Page 6

DOCTOR IN SIAM

AMAZING SURGERY FEATS OF IMPROVISATION BANGKOK, Sept. 14 Many Australian prisoners of war owe their lives to the brilliant surgery and clever improvisations of LieutenantColonel A. E. Coates, of the 2-13th Australian General Hospital, and former surgeon-superintendent of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, who in 1942 chose to remain with the troops as a prisoner rather than escape the clutches of the Japanese. Just before Singapore fell Colonel Coates was ordered to leave. When he reached Java, Singapore had surrendered. He was due to leave for Australia by plane, but decided that his, medical duty to the troops made it necessary for him to remain behind. Subsequently he became senior doctor with prisoners of war in Siam, working down the Bangkok- Moulmein railway, on the construction of which thousands died. Coates used a sharpened teaspoon to scrape tropical ulcers from the shinbones of hundreds of Australians’ legs. The men bore up under the terrific pain while the doctor joked with them, often reciting poetry. He always had a cigarette for them after their ordeal. With a Dutch chemist, Captain van Boxel, he worked feverishly day and night, to concoct some form of anaesthetic to relieve the unbearable pain of amputations. After numerous experiments they extracted alcohol from sake and wine and added cocaine received from the Japanese. They condensed the various fluids until they had a practical spinal anaethetic, so successful that they knew exactly how much to give for each minute it was desired to keep the patient under. Many one-legged Australians here today, who called themselves “Coates’ Boys,” owe their lives to his skill and initiative and his vital discovery. Ingenious methods were applied to obtain gut for sutures. When possible cows and other beasts were killed and gut extracted from their intestines.

Lieutenant-Colonel Coates is now in charge of the main hospital in Bangkok, where the troops are awaiting homewardbound aircraft. At one stage he and his orderlies were amputating at the rate of five a day among the railway, construction gangs, so bad were the tropical sores. Altogether he performed about 500 operations. He says his patients were the pluckiest and most couragebus any doctor ever had. The boys made crude wooden legs of bamboo, on which they became remarkably adept. One of the most amazing operations by Coates was performed recently w T ith a dentist’s drill, on an American, who had a tumor on the brain. Immediately on the capitulation of the Japanese the American was flown out direct to the United States for an urgent operation to save his life.