The life of Sir Robert Jones / [Frederick Watson].

  • Watson, Frederick, 1885-1935.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of Sir Robert Jones / [Frederick Watson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    forget the almost heart-breaking operations on children which we witnessed as house surgeons ? Excisions of hip and knee joints, for instance, which were frequently undertaken in the early stages of disease, in order to avoid the risk of subsequent suppuration and destruction. On examining the removed joint and observing the limited amount of trouble, and then contemplating the beauty of the child thus mutilated, one wondered and wondered. A very obvious deformity resulting from such operations was so common at the period at which I write, that it was observable almost any day as we went about the town : i.e.y lame people, with a shortened limb compensated by a hideous high soled boot/’ Robert Jones realised that there was little hope without consecutive treatment in some special institution. Too frequently patients were patched up and sent home. These drifted almost inevitably into chronic deformity. Secondly, large numbers of children suffering from chronic diseases were treated ineffectively in their own homes. By him as by no one else forty years ago it was clearly seen that the future of the crippled child was both surgical and social, a state not only of limbs, but of mind, and ultimately not satisfied with the promise of recovery he laid eager hands upon the means by which so much suffering could be prevented. On June 24th, 1898 a preliminary step was taken, when the following points were agreed between Robert Jones and Charles Macalister, Miss Ellen Sedgwick of the Liverpool Home for Incurables, and Miss Gaskell. They are a revelation of prophetic clarity : (1) —There are few children so incurable that they cannot become well if placed in proper circumstances for treatment. (2) —A hospital for such children, suffering from chronic diseases, should be recognised as being a place to which they may be sent, in order to have the best chance of recovery. (3) —Such an institution should be conducted on the lines of a hospital. It should be situated in the country, and placed under scientific and sanitary auspices. A resident doctor, or a local one acting on the spot, should be appointed to look