BOY WHO WORLD LAUGH AT THE DOCTORS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18446, 6 January 1922, Page 8

BOY WHO WORLD LAUGH AT THE DOCTORS.

Lord Frederic Hamilton, in his fascinating book “Here, There, and Everywhere” (Hoddcr and Stoughton, 15s net), tells a most remarkable and moving story of a sick boy who would laugh at the doctors in grave ’ illness and who to-day-still has reason to laugh at them. The incident is a striking storv of what “the will to get well” will do for a boy determined to live. Meeting the Sick Boy.— , Lord Frederic tells tho stojy, he says, “for the comfort and better encouragement of, those battling with the same disease. “I first met the. Sick Boy (hereinafter, 'for the sake of brevity, termed the ‘ S.B.’)at the house of one of my oldest friends, who had an annual cricket, party for the benefit of his son. Amongst the schoolboy eleven staying in the house was a tall and very thin lad of 16, who showed great promise as a bowler. My hostess told me that this boy was suffering from tuberculosis, that he had had to leave Eaton at 15 to undergo a very severe internal operation, from which he had only just recovered, and that when the party broke up he was going straight into a nursing home to prepare for another equally severe operation. Every time he played cricket he had to be put to. bed at once after the match, and to be fed on warm milk. The lad had tremendous pluck; in spite of his weakness he insisted on taking part in the games and amusements of the other boys, and proved very good at all of them. Three Years After.— “Three years later I met the S.B. again. He had spent the interval entirely in sanatoria and nursing-homes, except for a few months at St. Moritzj in the Engadine, and had undergone six major operations, the last one entailing the ‘removal of his left ear, though the external ear had been left. The unfortunate lad, who seemed to have had most of the working ‘ spare parts ’ of his anatomy removed, was a walking triumph of modern operative surgery, but his disease had clearly made advances. He was then living in an open-air hut at his father’s place, and his condition was obviously critical. “As I was myself * going to South Africa.l proposed to his father (he had lost his mother as a child) that the boy should accompany me, pointing out the wonders the dry South African climate had effected in similar cases, and the advantages of a-Jong sea voyage. So it was settled. As I was fully alive to the responsibilities I was incurring, I took mv valet with, me, in case additional help should .be required. Start for South Africa.— “Billyh (the 5.8.) came on board, long, lanky, and pitifully , emaciated. _, His abnormally brilliant colour and his unnaturally bright eyes betrayed the progress the disease had made with him. He revived at once' in the wamth, and I had considerabe difficulty in restraining his superabundant vitality, for he played deck-cricket all day, and entered himself for every single event in the ship’s sports, regardless of his very narrow available margin of strength. ’ After • arriving in Africa, as the S.B. could not have stood, the noise and racket of a big hotel, we found most comfortable quarters in a quiet little place in the delightful suburb of Rondebosch. I wished to go up-country, and as it was obvious that the S.B. could never have stood the heat, fatigue, and dust of long railway journeys during the height of the South African summer, I found myself in a difficult position. Mrs Botha to the Rescue.— “Mrs Botha came to the rescue, - and with extraordinary kindness told me to send the S.B. to Groote Scliuur, where she would undertake to look after blip. I have seldom come across so delightful a family as the Bothas—father, mother, sons, and daughters alike; so fortunate Billy the S.B. was transferred with his belongings to Groote Scliuur, where he was immensely elated at being allowed to use Cecil Rhodes’s sumptuous private bathroom. This bathroom was entirely lined with • Oriental alabaster; the bath itself was carved out of a solid block of green marble, and tbe very bath-taps were exquisitely chiselled bronze Tritons, riding, on dolphins. When I returned to Capetown I found the S.B. quite one of the Botha family, being addressed by everybody by his Christian name. . . • - “When we sailed from South Africa. Mrs Botha came down, to the liner to see that Billy’s cabin was comfortable and. that he had all the appliances he, required, such as hot-water bottles, etc., and she resented him with a largo parcel of home-made delicacies for his exclusive use on the voyage home. Nothing could have exceeded her kindness. to this afflicted lad, of whoso very existence she had been unaware threfe months earlier. Sunstroke on Board.— “Before we had been at sea a week the S.B. managed to get a sunstroke. He grow alarmingly ill, and the ship’s doctor told me that be had developed tubercular meningitis and that his recovery was impossible. I gave the S.B. a hint as to the gravity of his case, but the boy’s pluck was indomitable. _ ‘ 1 am going to sell that doctor,’ be said, r for I don’t mean to die now. I have sold the doctors twice already when they told me I was dying, and I am going to make this chap look silly too, for I don’t intend to go out. 1 ' “Soon after he relapsed into unconsciousness. Meningitis affects the eyes, and the poor S.B. could not bear one ray of light, so the cabin was carefully darkened, aiid the electrician replaced the white bulbs in the cabin and alleyway with green ones. As we were approaching the Eqiitor the heat in that closed-up cabin was absolutely suffocating, the thermometer standing at over lOOdeg. Still the sick lad felt chilly, and had to be surrounded with hot-water bottles, whilst an ice-pack was placed on his head. I and my valet took it in turns to sit np at nights with him, as every quarter of an hour we had to trickle a teaspoonful of iced milk and brandy into his mouth. Screaming for Beef Tea.— “As each morning came round the doctor’s astonishment at finding bis patient still alive was obvious, .and he assured me again and again that it could only be,.a question of hours. One morning my valet, whose turn as night nurse it was, awoke me at 4 a.m. with the news that ‘Mr William has dome to again, and is screaming for beef tea.’ I went into the cabin, where I found tbe S.B. quite conscious and insistently demanding beef tea. By sheer grit and force of will the lad had pulled himself out of the very Valley of the Shadow. We got him the'best substitute for beef tea to be obtained on a liner at 4.30 a.m., and two hours later ho was, clamouring for more. His progress to recovery was uninterrupted as soon as wo were able to carry him into tho ooen air, his eyes protected by some most ingenious light-proof goggles, cleverly fashioned on board by the second engineer. —Strictly Private Arrangements.— “The S.B. had learnt from tbe doctor of some strictly private arrangements which I had made with the captain of the ship should his disease unfortunately take a fatal turn. I found him one morning rolling about in his bunk with laughter. ‘ I tTis really the most comical idea I ever heard of in my life,’ he spluttered, shaking with merriment. Fancy carrymg me home in the meat-safe! Just imagine father’s face when you told hhn that you had got me down in the refrigerator ! I never heard anything so funny,” and as fresh humorous possibilities of this novel form of home-coming occurred to him he grew quite hysterical with laughter. He was immensely amused, too, at learning that during the most critical period of his illness I had got the captain to stop the ship’s band and, to rope-off the deck under his cabin window. “I will not deny that the S.B. required a good deal of supervision. For instance, when at length allowed a little solid food, I found that he had selected as a suitable invalid repast some game-pie and a strawberry ice, which had, of course, to be sternly vetoed. He had entered, too, for every event in the ship’s sports, and though ■he was so weak that he _ could barely stand he had every intention of competing. I have seldom met anyone with such wonderful personal courage as that boy, and he would never yield one inch to his enemy; the strong will was for ever dominating the frail body.

The Sick Boy Flies.— “Upon the outbreak of war in August, 1914/ ’ continues Lord Frederic, “the S.B. made three attempts to . obtain a'commission, only tp he promptly, rejected by the medical officers when they examined him. He then., tried to enlist as a private, under a false name, but no doctor wqpld pass him, so he went as a workman into a small arms factory, and made riflestocks for a year. The indoor life and the lack of fresh air aggravating his disease, he was forced, to abandon this work, when, by some means which I have, never yet fathomed, he managed to get a, commission in the, Royal Air Force. “The doctors, being much overworked, let him through without a medical examination, and- in due time the S:B. qualified as a pilot, when, owing to engine trouble, he promptly crashed in his seaplace into the North Sea, in January, and was an hour in the water before bomg rescued. This icy bath somehow arrested the progress of his disease, and he was subscquentlv sent to the Dardanelles. Here, whilst attempting to bomb Constantinople, the S.B. got shot down and captured by the Turks. During his 18 months of captivity he underwent the greatest privations from cold and hunger, being insufficiently clad and most insufficiently fed. Cured and Married. — “Upon his release after the armistice he was examined by a British doctor, who told him, to his amazement, that every trace of his dire disease bad vanished, nor were the most eminent specialists of Harley street subsequently' able to distinguish the faintest lingering, signs of tuberculosis. He. was completely cured, or, rather, by his strong will-power he had completely cured himself. _ “Billy (the term of S.B. being clearly no longer applicable) is now married to a pretty and charming wife; he is the proud father of a sturdy son, and is putting on weight at an alarming rate, Jus waistcoat already exhibiting a convexity of outline that would be justifiable only in the case of an alderman. He is a partner in a prosperous West End. business, and will bo most happy to book any orders you may give him for wine.