Great Medical Disasters Richard Gordon GREAT MEDICAL DISASTERS B y the same author NOVELS Doctor in the House The Captain's Table Doctor at Sea Nuts in May Doctor at Large The Summer of Sir Lancelot Doctor in Love Love and Sir Lancelot Doctor and Son The Facemaker Doctor in Clover Surgeon at Arms Doctor on Toast The Facts of Life Doctor in the Swim The Medical Witness Doctor on the Boil The Sleep of Life Doctor on the Brain The Invisible Victory Doctor in the Nude The Private Life of Doctor’s Daughters Florence Nightingale The Private Life of Jack the Ripper The Private Life of Dr. Crippen GENERAL Good Neighbours Bedside Manners Happy Families Dr. Gordon’s Casebook Instant Fishing By MARY AND RICHARD GORDON A Baby in the House GREAT MEDICAL DISASTERS DR. RICHARD GORDON Author of D octor in the House DORSET PRESS/New York First published in the United States of America in 1983 Copyright 01983 by Richard Gordon Limited A ll rig hts reserved, Stem and Day, Incorporated This edition published by Dorset Press, a division of Marboro Books Corporation, by arrangement with Stem and Day. Incorporated. 1966Dorset Press. i S b n z y fift H jw Cataloging in Hate Gordon, Richard, 1921- Great medical disasters. Bibliography: p. 1. Medicine—Anecdotes, faoetiae, satire, etc. 1. Title. [DNLM: 1. History of medicine. 2. Mai- practioe—History. W 44 G664g] R70S.G68 1983 610 82-42368 ISBN 0-88029-089-4 (Fbrmerly ISBN 0-8128-2911-S) ft ,;—a , J t i — r*.—i — n| X rzuiiBo ni to uiuiau oi junnoa M9 8 7 Physicians of all men are most happy; what good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth, and what faults they commit, the earth covereth. —Francis Quarles Doctors pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of whom they know nothing. — Voltaire The medical profession has not a high character; it has an infamous character. —Bernard Shaw Medicine is a rather philistine sort of profession; it's so often used to acquire rank and status. So many people are attracted to medicine because it will guarantee they will always be re­ spected and important to society. —Dr. Jonathan Miller The medical is an invidious profession. When one's practice is among the rich one looks like a lackey, when if s among the poor like a thief. —Dr. Louis-Ferdinand Celine Medicine is an art founded on conjecture and improved by murder. —Sir Anthony Carlisle See one physician like a sculler plies The patient lingers and by inches dies. But two physicians like a pair of oars Waft him more swiftly to the Stygian shores. —Anon He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand of the physician. —Eccle8iasticu8, 38:IS. Doctors are professional and graduated homicides. —Sydney Smith Doctors is all swabs. —Billy Bones in Treasure Island A cknowledgments To the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, the library of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the London Library. To the Editor of Punch, for kind permission to reproduce the verse in Doctor Death. CONTENTS A Disastrous Practice ........................................................ 15 P A R T O N E : D is a s t r o u s D o c t o r s 1. Triple Knock-Out Disastrous Surgical Enthusiasm............................. 19 2. The Emperor’s Sore Throat Sir Morrell Mackenzie and the Kaiser ..................... 23 3. Kinky Kinks Corset Disaster ................................................... 31 4. The Tender Trap Delicate D isaster.................................................. 35 5. Surgical Souvenirs Litigious Litter..................................................... 37 P A R T T W O : M a l p r a c t ic e M a d n e s s 6. The King Is Dead Not Without h e lp .................................................. 41 7. The Decline and Fall of Edward Gibbon Inexpressible Embarrassment ................................ 47 8. The Sack-’Em-Up Men Disaster for Scottish Anatomy................................ 49 9. Rien Ne Va Plus Disastrous French Bedside Manner ........................ 55 10. Scutari Miss Nightingale vs. the British A rm y..................... 57 11. Clubland Doctor Disastrous Negligence (60 Percent)......................... 61 PART THREE: L e t A l l Y e W h o E n t e r H e be . 12. Disastrous Motherhood Tales from the Vienna Wards ............................... 65 13. Design for Living Bricks and Mortality .......................................... 69 14. Catastrophe Heartbreaking Hospital Hazard ............................. 71 15. Rude Awakening Frozen Assets..................................................... 73 PART FOUR: G erm W a r f a r e 16. Typhoid Mary Death on a Plate ................................................ 77 17. St Anthony’s Fire Bakehouse Disaster ............................................ 81 18. Luckless Lubeck Vaccine Backfires ............................................... 83 19. Bitter Victory Spanish F lu ............................................ 87 20. The Green Monkeys Revenge in the Rhineland .......................... 91 21. The Black Death A Clerical Disaster ............................................. 93 22. The Reluctant Benefactor Stillbirth at St. Mary’s ......................................... 97 PART FIVE: I n s id io u s N a t u r e 23. Transatlantic Disaster West and American Indian Revenge ........... 101 24. Calamity in the Cupboard Australian Disaster............................................... 103 25. One in the Eye Celebratory Disaster............................................. 107 26. Scurvy Treatment Disastrous Diet for Gallant Gentlemen ..................... 109 27. Sandwich Disaster Botulism on Loch Maree ........................................113 P A R T S D L R ig h t Is W r o n g 28. Doctor Death Nemesis on the Dawn Express................................ 119 29. Ironing Out the Bugs in Panama Colonel Gorgas vs. the U.S. A rm y............................ 125 30. Untreasured Island How to Beat Hitler with Sheep................................ 135 31. Suffer the Little Children If Politically Advantageous..................................... 141 32. Disastrous Disasters TropdeZMe......................................................... 145 33. The Dying Art Hamfisted Hangmen..............................................147 PART SEVEN: T h e Q u ic k a n d t h e D e a d 34. A Touch of Class Waiting Room Disaster ......................................... 153 35. BeachyHead Preventive Medicine Breakthrough...........................155 PART EIGHT: A D ic t io n a r y OF D is a s t e r 36. It’s a Cruel World Disastrous A-Z ................................................... 161 PART NINE: S e x u a l E n t r a p m e n t s 37. Love Locked In Dubious Disaster.................................................. 173 38. Breaking It Off Liberated Female Disaster ..............................175 39. The Most Unkindest Cut of All Vasectomy Vagaries ..............................................177 40. Disastrous Habits Tom Brown’s Schooldays ............. 181 41. And So to Bed Devilish Disaster.................................................. 183 42. Cleaner Living Nature Adores a Vacuum .................................... 185 43. Boob Boobs A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy for Lawyers..................... 187 44. Obstetrical Obsession Maternal Mutilation..............................................189 45. The Joy (Slightly Impaired) of Sex Boswell’s Clap in 1763 ......................................... 191 46. The Joy (Naval Fashion) of Sex Disastrous Effect of Shore Leave..............................199 PART TEN: F in a l D ia g n o s is 47. 101 Uses of a Dead Pope Disaster on Judgment Day .....................................203 48. The Final Word StiUDodgy ......................................................... 207 49. Greatest Disaster of All Pressing Proclivity to Procreate............................... 209 50. Disastrous End ......................................................... 211 References ...................................................................... 215 Acknowledgments............................................................. 223 A D is a s t r o u s P r a c t ic e Thousands of books have been published on the triumphs of medicine. This is the other one. Medicine has its Tampa Bay Bridge, Titanic, Great Fire of London, and San Francisco Earthquake. Even its equivalents of pussycats up trees, burst watermains and thunderstorms are major disasters if they happen to you. Mankind suffered cruelly for centuries from lack of medical knowledge. The brilliant scientific discoveries of this century eradicated the evil so efficiently it now suffers as painfully from too much. Doctors can be fired by ideals—as fanatically as the Spanish Inquisition. They can follow more false trails than Inspector Clouseau. They can become so fond of dead doctrines, they resemble a procession of ostriches with their heads in the sand. The medical art is revealed by its disasters, as the military one is by its defeats. This catalogue of disasters will make you feel great to be alive. Part One D is a s t r o u s D o c t o r s 1 T r ip l e K n o c k -O u t Disastrous Surgical Enthusiasm Robert Liston was the fastest knife in the West End. He could amputate a leg in 2V6 minutes. He lived during the 1840s at No. 5 Clifford Street, off Bond Street in Mayfair. His three-story house with tall downstairs windows, elegantly spiralling oak staircase and boot-scraper, now faces the club that invented Buck’s fizz. Liston was an incorrigible bustler, even for a surgeon. He eschewed carriages,