PLASTIC SURGERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24685, 14 August 1941, Page 9

PLASTIC SURGERY

DUNEDIN DOCTOR’S WORK “ McINDOE’S WHIPSNADE ” (0.C.) LONDON, July 23. The important work being done by Mr A. H. Mclndoe (Dunedin)., a leading plastic surgeon and consultant to the R.A.F., is commented upon by a correspondent of the Evening Standard. Mr Mclndoe treats men of the R.A.F. who have been bistered and burnt in the air. “Some of the men," it was stated, “ because of their injuries, have little inclination to go on living when they reach Mclndoe’s hospital. Mclndoe cures them, mentally as well as physically. , He is a psychologist as well as a surgeon. The men at the hospital say he works miracles. I have visited this hospital; it is a collection of wooden huts. “I was taken first into Ward Three, to which the worst cases are brought. I had expected to find a darkened room, and men too conscious of their disfigurement to talk to strangers. The men, in fact, are good company. “In this ward there are between 43 and 50 beds. The' average age of the patients is 25, and on the ■majority of blue tunics which hang at the end of the ward are the ribbons of the D.F.C., A.F.C., and D.S.O. " The nurses call this ward, Jokingly, Mclndoe’s Whipsnade, because of the variety of nationalities it contains. There are Scotsmen and Welshmen arid Englishmen, Free Frenchmen, Poles and Czechs and Dutchmen. Many have been there for three months. “Halfway down Ward Three lies Peter, a 21-year-old pilot officer shot down in flames Over seven months ago. When he came to the hospital, Peter was low in spirit. Till one day Mclndoe ordered him into an ambulance. “ 4 You’re doing away from here,’ he told Peter. ‘You’re going to London for the night—l’ve booked a room for you in an hotel, and I’ve booked a “ place ’’ for you at the afternoon performance of “Black Vanities.’’ Have a good time. “So up to London, with his nurse, came Peter, to stay in a West End hotel. He was wheeled in a long chair, right up to the front of the auditorium of the Victoria Palace, where Frances Day sang directly to him. He forgot all about his scars, and returned to hospital in high spirits. " In another bed is Frankie, a young Czech, pilot, who was extraordinarily good-looking. Now the lower part of his face is terribly injured. He, too, was keenly conscious of his disfigurement, Til] Mclndoe filled him with his own confidence that one day that face would be as good as new “Now, over the partially-healed scars, Frankie’s eyes twinkle. His laughing plea to Mclndoe is ‘Please, feex my lips queeck—because theese way I cannot keess.* ”