KING'S RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS REMARKABLE

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 64, 17 March 1931, Page 7

KING'S RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS REMARKABLE

WAS PRACTICALLY DEAD FOR THIRTY-SIX HOURS.

(Special to the “ Star.”) AUCKLAND, March 17. Mr Percy Furnival, formerly a consulting surgeon to the London Hospital, where he was associated with Lord Dawson (the King’s physician), returned by the Tofua from the Pacific Islands to complete his New Zealand holiday. He said that the King's recovery from illness was remarkable, as he was considered to be practically dead for thirty-six hours. Those best able to judge thought that his Majesty would not recover. Mr Furnival said that he had taken the place of Sir Frederick Treves (who operated on King Edward for appendicitis) at London Hospital. That noted surgeon held the opinion that five days should elapse before an appendicitis operation, but when Sir Frederick’s daughter contracted that complaint she was operated on within thirty-six hours, and died. “The surgeon’s dilemma,” remarked Mr Furnival jocularly, “ was to devise some means to make the appendix grow again, with a view to nipping it off, to solve an econontic problem of the profession.”