The King's Doctors.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue VIII, 23 August 1902, Page 450

The King's Doctors.

Of the live emiuexit doctors who are

in attendance upon His Majesty probably the two best known are Sir Frederick Treves and Lord Lister —

the one by reason of his magnlticen: services to tihe British troops in South Africa and the other neeause of his

long and sterling work in the minimising of human suffering. Of the other three. Sir Thomas Smith is the Honorary Sergeant-Surgeon to the King; Sir Thomas Barlow is Physician to His Majesty’s Household, and Sir

Henry Laking occupies the position of Physician-in-Ordinary and Surgeon Apothecary.

Sir Frederick Treves, K.C.V.0., C. 8., F.R C.S., who perfoimed the operation, is best known to the Brit-

ish public in connection with the Ladysmith Relief Column, for which he received the medal and three clasps. Sir Frederick is both a theorist and a dealer in results. His experience has been gained in the byways rather tlhan the highways of life. In his early days, for instance, he was a doctor on board one of the boats in the Deep Sea Fleet, and his popularity with the fishermen was shown not long since, when he made a speech to them in Exeter Hall. Directly he rose from his seat he was

greeted by the bearded smacksnien with “For he’s a jolly good fellow.”

Sir Frederick was born at Dorchester in 1853, and, although of Italian extraction, he is nevertheless thoroughly English in all his ways.

Prominent in the life work of Lord Lister stands the discovery of tihe antiseptic method of treating wounds in surgical operations. Born at Upton in 1827, he had an almost meteoric

career up to the year 1860, when he was appointed Regius Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow. Here he found himself surrounded by the typical surgery of the day. However brilliant—and from a surgical point of view, successful—the opera-

tions were, he saw that, in the greater number of cases, they terminated fatally. Undiscovered germs set at nought the most expert surgeon’s skill, and nullified in a few hours the work of the most expert member of the surgical profession. It was Lister who showed how these germs could be overcome. He realised that it was necessary to prevent the bacteria from entering wounds both at the time of operation and afterwards. Carbolic acid, which had previously been used in bandaging, was selected by him as the agent, and starting witlh this basis he gradually worked out the details of his system, until at length he completed it in the year 1867. Among other things, Lord Lister is the inventor of the tourniquet for compressing the abdominal aorta. He was the first to undertake osteotomy to rectify deformity of the limbs, and the first to advocate the more complete method of operating for cancer of the breast. For this and numerous other discoveries he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to the late Queen Victoria in 1900, and has since held a large number of other distinguished appointments, ending finally in his election as President of the Roval Society in 1896.

Sir Thomas Smith, F.R.C.S., K.C.V.0., was educated at Tonbridge School and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he is consulting surgeon. He was born in the year 1833, is a late vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1895 was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

His baronetcy was conferred upon him in Jubilee Year. Like his colleague. Sir Thomas Barlow, he is consulting surgeon to the Children’s Hospital, and is examiner in surgery to the Royal College of Physicians, London.

who was in attendance at the King’s operashe rendered invaluable aid in tending the tio<n, and who has been in charge of the Royal patient ever since. She was with Sir Frederick Treves in South Africa, where wounded.