RELICS OF WAR SURGERY

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14206, 8 February 1915, Page 3

RELICS OF WAR SURGERY

CRUDE INSTRUMENTS OF OTHER DAYS. •

An exhibition of objects aud relics tissociaj-ed with naval atid military surgery was opened 0:1 December 1-lth in the Wellcome Medical Museum, Wigmore street, London, it shows the rude instruments which surgery had at its: disposal as a beneficent agent in war from the earliest times down to Waterloo. There is a fearful and wonderful assortment, of amputation knives and saws used by naval and military surgeons of other days. Two instruments' for the extraction of bullets in the Civil "War of the 17th century are very peculiar. The wound was first enlarged by one instrument, and then the other, called the extractor, was inserted., having at its end a gimlet, which was bored into the bullet.

There is another case illustrating the origin and development of the tourniquet for the arrest of hemorrhage from a severed artery on the battlefield, rang ing from the severed cord that encircled the amputated limb and was tightened by a stick, to tho screw instrument, such as was used when amputating -Nelson's arm.

But the personal relies are more interesting. These include two little medicine chests, one which Nelson kept in his cabin on board the Victory, and the other which Wellington carried with him in the Peninsular campaign. There are also several autograph letters of Florence Nightingale. One, written from the Barack Hospital, Scutari, on September 22nd, 1555, shows the care she took in seeing that tho messages of dying soldiers to relatives at home were safely delivered. She writes to someone in London: "The enclosed small parcels are watches and trinkets belonging to dead men whose last words were that-I should send them to their friends." The person to whom the letter is addressed is asked to see personally to the delivery of the parcels, and, should this 'be found impracticable, 2s 6d is enclosed to pay for tho postage. "Be sure to register them," is Miss Nightingale's last injunction.