SURGERY IN THE WAR.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 151035, 29 July 1919, Page 2

SURGERY IN THE WAR.

GREAT ADVANCE NOTED. j Looking well after jive years on active service, surgeon-general Charles Ryan, C.8., C.13.E., V.L)., returned to Melbourne a few days ago, and was warmly : welcomed by a large circle of friends. His war experiences aYe remarkably interesting. He returns with a great admiratiuii of the Australian as a solclier, and also as a patient, fl'here were no finer men physically in the Allied armies, he says, and few as fine. They stood right out in physique, intelligence and initiative. As illustrative of their initiative, Surgeon-general Ryan tells of a prisoners of war, including seven Australians, in Germany The only men who attempted to escape in the face of what seemed almost insuperable difficulties were the seven Australians and five of them succeeded. When questioned regarding the advance made in surgery during the war tvurgeon-general Ryan said: "Great strides were made in the successful treatment of wounds, particularly abdominal wounds and wounds of thorax and chest. Operations that were almost unheard of before the war were perform- • ocl with the best results. It was no uncommon thing to remove, a foreign body from the lungs, or to bring the whole of a lung outside the chest wall. In the old .days, when a man was shot in the nfodomen, and there were many lacerations, death usually followed. Later 50 per cent of these cases recovered. The chief lactor m the improvement was the establishment of casualty clearing stations a few miles behind the fighting front, so that instead of 10, 14, 24 hours intervening before an operation was performed, the patient was placed in a motor waggon and hurried away to where the most skilful treatment and the most up-to-date appliances were waiting At Anzac the surgeons did not receive the cases under 12-hours. Another important factor in the more successful treatment was the arrangement by which the grave cases received precedence. In the casualty clearing stations there was splendid 'team work 7 —surgeons and nurses working together." • ° On being asked whether war surgeons would .bring back discoveries that would be of value to civil practice, Surgeongeneral Ryan said that great good would result from the new antiseptics and new forms of drainage. As a young surgeon, Surgeon-general Ryan served with the. Turkish forces in the^w.ir against Russia. On the day m li? i?,. wnen an armistice was arranged on Galhpoh to enable the Turks to bury their dead he walked about between the lines, and entered into conversation with an enemy party. A Turkish staff ottzcer came along and asked him why h* was wearing a Turkish war ribbon. When told that Surgeon-general Ryan was with the Turks in the war of lone ago the staff officer said laughinelv, Why are you not with us now ?" Remarking that the Turks around him were the sons of the-veterans-of the .war, * the Turkish staff officer called several by name and introduced ithem. -Surgeon-general -Ryan says that ?*"™.,a bitter war temporarily suspend(!h B «V »T% tu DOvel exPerience to have