Surgery at Sea

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 260, 24 January 1928, Page 1

Surgery at Sea

FINE FEAT BY DOCTOR Captain as Anaesthetist

A MOST difficult and dangerous operation was performed on a woman passenger on the Shaw, Savill and A ion o. s liaer Arawa by the ship’s surgeon, Mr. A. R. Upton. Just after leaving Panama the passenger went down Fith appendicitis, but as she had previously suffere peritonitis, serious complications set in.

ty®ELESS messages were sent out ano^®r surgeon to assist Mr. hut as there were no vessels 1,8 continued with the opera- '** »lone. Jk ®Pt°n performed the operation Is known as the bloodless °f surgery, which was first test year by a celebrated Lon--1 "irgeon. operation occupied two hours Toil tnln utes. It was started at « on Jan uary 7 and finished w}‘ o clock. All this time the Fas headed into the sea and were slowed down. wrr* r and light were bad, which t* 1 ® surgeon s difficulties. A after part of the vessel h Jr?®** into a temporary hospital, w a makeshift operating table - ®rected. W. G. Summers, the itu... ®*Ptaln, administered the ••He «i.s splendid,' said 1m v fltia morning. “He did not K,/? **® told a thing.” teJauS P' Tiiwaites, who is an Xfrom the London Hos-

pltal and is going to the Church of England St. George’s Hospital, Christchurch, assisted Mr. Upton, whose work she described as wonderfill. “I have worked under the best doctors in the UoncK*" said Matron Thwaites this morning, “and I have never seen a better operation performed. Mr Upton did not wish to discuss th“ operation very fully, though everyone on board the Arawa paid Mm the highest tributes. “t was the most difficult operation I have ever performed at sea, he Lb? “but everyone has been very *ood in tS/me. My thanks are due to Commander Summers, Matron Thwaites?and to Mr. R. E. Wilson, our £ “£S£* lie? fortX^ Surgeon Dg ,°f fZ & hbs S. SUE*