U.S. REPORT DENIED OF PROPOSED FOOT AMPUTATION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22817, 11 December 1948, Page 5

U.S. REPORT DENIED OF PROPOSED FOOT AMPUTATION

KING'S ILLNESS

(11,30 a.m.)

LONDON, Dec. 10.

Reuter, on the highest authority, states there is no truth in the New York Daily Mirror report that the King’s doctors are contemplating the amputation of either or both feet.

The doctors who are attending His Majesty are expected to issue on Monday a fairly detailed bulletin dealing with the progress of the King, says the Australian Associated Press. The bulletin will, it is understood, also deal' with statements published in the United States that His Majesty’s condition is more serious than the bulletins issued so far have shown. U.S. Specialist to See Woman Patient Some London newspapers have published a statement which originated in New York that an American specialist on vascular diseases is in London for consulation with His Majesty's doctors. There is no confirmation in London of this report. The report that a doctor flying from (he United States to see the King was probably based on the fact that an American specialist is on the way to England to attend a private woman patient. It is emphasised that his vi.-jt lias no connection whatever with the King's illness. The New York Daily Mirror on Thursday night reported it learns on high authority that the physicians are on Hie verge of ordering King George to have one or both legs amputated to check fatal gangrene from Buerger's Disease, from which he is suffering.

Illness Hidden For Years

The Daily Mirror reports that so critical is the situation that an American authority on vascular diseases has flown from Now York lo Buckingham Palace for consultation on the treatment, of the King. The Daily Mirror says that the newspaper correspondents are only now learning how the King concealed his illness for eight years by devious means, including the use of “pancake" make-up to cover pallor caused by tile disease because he “was unwilling

to add to the anxieties of his subjects during the war years.” The paper says that Buerger’s Disease was named after Dr. Leo Buerger who first diagnosed it in 1908 and is characterised by thrombosis of the arteries and veins in extremities. Inflnmation customarily develops around the blood vessels. The flow of blood is shut off from the legs, creating the danger of gangreneMedical circles bclieVo that excessive smoking is the chief contributory cause of Buerger's Disease, says the Daily Mirror.