Amputations Done At Sea

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19240, 29 November 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

Amputations Done At Sea

By

Skippers.

(By A SEA CAPTAIN.) rO-DAY, thanks to wireless and speed, few ships are put in a really hopeless plight when serious illness affects any member of their companies. It is -becoming a commonplace to read how this liner or that obeyed a radio call, and, hurrying to the troubled ship, despatched a qualified surgeon—perhaps even a nurse or two—to convey healing and comfort. Only the other day a ship signalled her need of a surgeon, and one was hurried away by a fast tug to meet the supplicant in deep water, and do what was necessary to save human life. As shown in a recent case, the shipmaster is occasionally required to act for himself. I have been witness and party to hair-raising major operations performed down the stormy Easting or actually off the Pitch of the Horn, in old windjamming days. On each occasion, miraculously, the patient recovered — which is more a testimony to the hardihood of the seagoing breed than to the skill of the amateur surgeons. Nowadays, most certified ships’ officers have to pass an examination in rudimentary first aid. This seldom extends beyond the customary elementarycourse. Other Days. The old days when a shipmaster, finding in his invaluable blue-book of directions which fitted in the lid of his medicine chest, that a certain series of symptoms called for a dose of No. 7 draught, and discovering that he was clean out of No. 7, mixed Nos. 3 and, 4, are gone. But even to-day, only; passenger-carrying vessels are equipped with a qualified surgeon and a full surgical outfit. It falls to the master’s lot to prescribe or operate for quite complicated troubles. I recently met a ship’s captain who successfully operated on a member of his crew for appendicitis, stopping the engines and heaving to so that the run of a heavy sea should not hinder his amateur efforts. But this man was a medical faddist, who always travelled with his own private emergency stock of drugs, instruments. and anaesthetics, and occupied his shore-leaves with walking in hospitals and picking up first-aid and invaluable knowledge likely to serve him in good stead. Not all are so fortunate The first major operation with which I had anything to do occurred somewhere about the Crozets, down in the South Indian Ocean. The windjammer was 2000 miles from any land. A sailor had fallen from aloft and fractured—compound comminuted—his thigh; and owing to lack of skilled treatment, gangrene had set in. The situation seemed hopeless. The ship carried no anaesthetics, there were no surgical instruments. beyond a few artery forceps, some needles and gut, and a rusty lancet or two. It meant a possible twenty, at least filteen. da vs before port could be r-auied. \Vr said to the man: “If we ' '. n z ta^e °ff your leg you’ll die. certain!,\ It we do take it off you might aic. l>ut, on the other hand, there’s a one in a hundred chance of living. It’s f° y°u to say which it shall be.” Go ahead, sir, take it off,” said the sufferer. Picture the scene: A galehounded ship, her decks washed down by bitter easting seas, throwing herself about wildly, pretty cold weather, with ice forming as the spray fell; dampness everywhere; and only one stove to give heat, and that in the main cabin.

Grim Tools. We held a council of war. Our available surgical tools were grim and grotesque. Lack of an anaesthetic precluded a long-drawn operation; it must be sharp and sudden. Wf ground the carpenter’s broad axe to a fine edge. The man was prepared for action, extended on a hatch-cover, with clean canvas under him. A firm tourniquet was applied well above the selected spot for % the severance; forceps and needles were laid in readiness. Such antiseptic as we possessed—crude carbolic only—was prepared, plenty of hot water was readied in the galley. The patient was made soddenly drunk with raw rum. As it was in Nelson’s day, so in ours. The steward poured a final tumbler of rum down the sailor’s throat. As he gasped and choked the leg came off. That is all. But I had to do the cutting! Twenty honest years later I met this patient still alive, still busy with ships —though as a watchman on account of his wooden leg. That leg was one my carpenter had fashioned! The man was quite satisfied. He had gone to hospital when we reached land, of course, to be trimmed up. We had omitted certain details which any surgeon will call to mind, and trimming was necessary. lie was perfectly well and vigorous, and repeated his thanks, since he was alive and a wage-earner. The following voyage a boy fell from aloft and broke his thigh bone; a simple fracture. He was a well-muscled youngster. We had to employ a “ handy-billy ” —that is, a small, useful tackle—to pull his broken limb straight, and we compared its appearance when so hauled out with the sound one, to help us in splinting it. Complete Recovery. Here, again, was a complete recovery —though the boy, unfortunately, limped a little. There had been a slight shrinkage. When he earned sufficient money this boy went to a hospital and had the limb rebroken and reset to take the kink out. But he said the original repair was more satisfactory. I have no doubt that any old freightcan recollect some similar emergency, similarly coped with., In one ship in which I served the captain’s wife added to the ship’s complement—twins. We had been kept back by calms and head winds for sixty days longer than we expected. She had made few preparations, and these few were in anticipation of only one baby. But the whole ship rose to the emergency. The steward was married—apart from the skipper, the only married man aboard. I had studied a little medicine, and the duty of attendance fell to us, for the skipper was crazy with fear. The twins came satisfactorily into the world. They were clothed in contributions made by the crew—old shellbacks were fine needlemen—and. so far as I know, the infants did well. I have been asked to perform the most intricate operations on men. The faith of those old shellbacks in their captain was astonishing and pathetic. He was esteemed a sort of natural healer. If I were to list the odd devices to which I have resorted to relieve suffering I should never be believed, and grave specialists of Harley Street would soberly state that impossibilities had been attempted. Yet, driven by stress, these impossibilities have come off. Desperate Remedies. As for cases of illness pure and simple, they were legion. It requires the stark loneliness of a stretch of sea like that, say. between Cape Town and Cape Leeuwin, where you may run for a month without sighting a single sail, to prove to a man the capability for desperate remedies that are -within

him. I shiver often to-day when I reflect on the risks that were taken. The astonishing feature is that there were so few fatal issues and so many that were successful —in the face of the utterly impossible. Short of turning a m an inside out and spnng-cleamng his interior, we stuck at nothing, in the attempt to save his life. But maybe the toughness of the patients was our best aid. All I know is that when a man is suffering agonies and appealing to you. as his superior, to ease his pain, you feel you have got to do something.