MARTYRDOMS OF MEDICINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

MARTYRDOMS OF MEDICINE.

VICARIOUS SACRIFICE. BY MATANGA. The week that has seen the world exercised about the fate of Lord Kitchener's body and the illness of a film-actor in America has seen also the passing of Dr. J. F. Hall-Edwards. Without the slightest inclination to pillory our own age—not bad at heart, by any means—one wonders whether Hall-Edwards has been given a tithe of the notice accorded to Frank Power or Rudolph Valentino. If so, the fa<s is to be regretted. Tho story of his heroic martyrdom touches a sublime height, for it exemplifies the willingness of men to suffer for their fellows, an achievement greater far than to champion or amuse them. This Birmingham doctor was one of the pioneer experimenters with X-ray treatment. He began his researches thirty years ago, barely a yeai after Rontgen made the remarkable discovery of a shadowy door-key on a developing negative and so came by what we call chance to knowledge of light rays hitherto out side human ken. Using these rays continuously for certain cases in his hospital practice, Hall-Edwards found that they conferred undoubted benefit. Then one day ho noticed a small ulcer on his hand. Another and another appeared. They wore treated, but grow worse. It dawned on him at last that they were caused by the rays continuously coming into contact with his hands. What was giving life to his patients, under controlled use, was bringing death to him The rays were literally eating away his hands. But he would not hear of abandoning his work. The ulcers spread to his arms. They invaded his body. Still he would not give up. The data he was collecting were helping him to discover how these beneficent rays might be made safe for others to handle. He spent his earnings on further experiments in this, and working on in ceaseless pain continued his regular hospital use of tho new and wonderful remedy. Day by day, while his patients benefited, he endured without complaint. Soon his left forearm had to be amputated, then his right hand, and his work had to stop. But he dictated books on the subject, which have proved of v untold value to scientists and physicians. His service; to humanity has not been without some recognition—the Carnegie medallion for heroism and a civil pension of £l2O a year! Perhaps his death, after years of agony borne with high courage; will lead som° to spare a thought for him who gave scanty thought to himself.

The Lighter Side.

The world is full of vicarious sacrifice. There is a phase of the fact that does little credit—the sending of others to Calvary. Medioine of old time had a touch of that,' but so many of us live in glass houses that stone-throwing is risky. There is a lighter side. When Sir Patrick Manson, in our own day, sent his Chinese chair-bearer, bribed with a dollar, into a netted room to be bitten by selected mosquitoes, he did it with good intent, for he was bent on beneficent discovery. " John" did not mind—he was infected already— and he slept iike a top until Manson came in the morning to gather the blood-gorged insects for dissection. The mosquitoes were tho only real sufferers, and they were sacrificed in a good cause. Simon Jesty's wife and sons, long ago deliberately given cowpox by this canny Devonshire farmer, were little the worse for his somewhat clumsy vaccination. They might have wondered why he did not make the experiment on himself as a beginning, but they knew their subjection to his , bidding would ' probably save them from something much worse, for even then " You be lucky: the smallpox won't touch you now'! " was the comment thereabouts what time a milkmaid's arms showed she had caught something from a cow. Over against this phase is a wealth of heroic ' episode, and it redounds to the eternal credit of the profession devoted to i mankind's defence against disease. Prodigies of Pluck. There was long ago that heroic French practitioner,/who, when the plague was decimating Marseilles, sacrificed himself to save the city. Entering a house where death had claimed every member of the family, he made skilful examination of the bodies, wrote his findings on a sheet of paper and threw it into the street. In a few hours he was dead, but his self-immolation was a price ho gladly paid to stay the plague. There was splendid pluck in Simpson's search for an anaesthetic. Making all sorts of mixtures, he inhaled them, being sometimes ill for days in consequence. Often he risked death in this quest. When at length he discovered chloroform, it was with a daring willingly shared by his medical friends Keith and Duncan. A French scientist had sent him, in Response to a general request to be supplied with strange liquids, a little bottle containing a heavy, oily stuff. The three sat down to supper, talking of Simpson's search. " Here, let us try this," he said, producing the bottle. A little was poured into each tumbler. They picked them up together, held them under their noses, and inhaled deeply. For a moment or two they talked on, but when Mrs. Simpson came into the room she found them lying unconscious " under the mahogany," and she and the butler had much trouble to bring the three doctors round. Pasteur, studying anthrax, ran daily risks. He had besides much bitter obloquy, and was challenged to duels by silly fellows yho resented his opposition to their prejudices. Of "Mosquito Manson," by the way, it was often said by the know-alls —"Poor chap! he's quite off his h?.ad." Lister's experiments in antiseptic surgery exposed him to much virulent contempt. A Long, Illustrious Line. There was Pare, going into battle after battle to enlarge his experience of surgery, and humbly saying of many a feat "I dressed his wounds; God healed them." Even after he became court surgeon in France to Henry 11. and his immediate successors he was net free from scurrilous attempts to thwart and ruin him. Ross, working in India day after day/ with his rricroscope till its screws were rusted with sweat from his hands and forehead, while swarms of flies persecuted him at their pleasure, is a type of worker that even in these days of Labour's apotheosis is too little appreciated. " That's the Devil! " said a famous scientist to David Masters looking studiously at a cage of mosquitoes. So the French found when they started to dig the Panama Canal. The little stegomyia drove them from the task, till others "found a way to exorcise the evil. The search cost them much pain. They took .their lives in their hands. There is a monument in Cuba that graphically tells this sort of story. It has a tablet to Dr. Lazear's memory:

"With more courage than t>>_e devotion of a soldier, he risked and lost his life to show how a fearful pestilence i 3 communicated and how its ravages may be prevented. A week before' his death he was busy taking samples of blood from hospital patients down with yellow fever. A mosquito hummed round his bead and settled on his hand. Calmly he ivatched it feed and noted its movements, his one desire to test his belief as to the raids of " Yellow Jack." Madness? It all depends. By such marvellous enthusiasm came knowledge and safety for others, and they do callous wrong to use hard words in place of grateful praise. So the great story goes of suffering and death bravely faced for others' gain. It is as the latest of a long line of illustrious martyrs that the name of Hall-Edwards is written, and the end. is not yet.