Women as army surgeons

by Flora Murray

The wounded owed much to the inventive genius of Mrs. Banks. She began work in the hospital mending room, and then became famous over papier mâché. No one could construct splints for the upper arm so comfortably and so effectively as she did, and her abdominal belts and other appliances were greatly appreciated. One notable case had the humerus smashed into a hundred pieces, but it ultimately united and the patient left hospital with a useful arm and some X-ray photographs which thrilled him. There were men with divided or injured nerves, and several hundreds with acute appendicitis, both interesting and satisfactory to the surgeon; besides all the more ordinary gunshot injuries, many of them with fractures, for which the operations of wiring and plating the bones were constantly undertaken.

The number of operations performed in the theatres was seven thousand, but the minor ones done in the wards or casualty room were unrecorded, and are not included in this figure.

When the wards were full of men, the actual work of dressing their wounds occupied a great deal of time; and as it was often necessary that a large number should be dressed twice a day, or even every four hours, the work was never finished.

In July 1916, at a time when the hospital was very crowded and dressing was going on practically all day, Professor R. Morrison, of Newcastle on Tyne, wrote to the pathologist, asking that his method of using ‘Bipp’ might have a trial. Doctors, nurses and patients alike were finding the constant changing of dressings exhausting, and suggestions were welcome. ‘Bipp’ was a paste which, after being rubbed into the wound, could be left untouched for ten or even twenty-one days. A chemical reaction kept up an antiseptic effect, and the undisturbed tissues healed rapidly. The first results were so romantic that an extended trial was given to the method; and before long ‘Bipp’ came into general use in the hospital and held its position first amongst all other disinfectants. The work in the wards at once became manageable; the number of dressings fell 80 per cent, and the results were splendid. The men appreciated the rest and relief from painful dressings and were also proud of their rapid progress. New-comers might look doubtful when they heard that their wounds would be left alone for ten days, and would murmur that in the last hospital they were dressed every day; but their neighbours had learnt to comment on old-fashioned ways, and laughed them out of their fears. ‘Bipp’ metamorphosed the work of the hospital. The surgeons relied on it so confidently that they never hesitated to operate on septic fractures or joints; and on one occasion a scalp abscess was evacuated, the skull trephined and a bullet extracted from the brain, in the complete assurance that ‘Bipp’ would save the situation, as it did.

In the autumn of the year 1916 Sir Alfred Keogh paid his first and only visit to Endell Street. He came, accompanied by the Deputy Director of Medical Services for the London District, to see the results obtained by the use of ‘Bipp’; for the War Office had heard of the method and was considering introducing it into the Army hospitals and casualty clearing stations abroad. Endell Street was the only hospital in London which had given it an extensive trial, and it was a proud moment when the Chief Surgeon led the Director General from ward to ward, displaying one good surgical result after another, showing normal temperature charts and healed wounds, with conservation of tissues and good movements. At last he said that he had seen enough and was convinced, and when he took his leave, he congratulated the staff upon the success of the hospital.

‘I knew you could do it,’ he said. ‘We were watched, but you have silenced all critics.’

In his busy life, Sir Alfred Keogh had not time to see the hospital again, but he kept himself informed of its progress, and when the time came that he left the War Office, he wrote as follows:

Dear Dr. Garrett Anderson—I appreciate very highly the very charming message you and Doctor Flora Murray have sent me in your letter. I shall go down to see you and say good-bye before I actually leave the War Office.

I should have liked to have seen you and your work very often, but you will know that with six foreign campaigns on hand, and an immense amount of work in addition in connection with home affairs—which perhaps were even more difficult than the foreign ones—it has not been possible for me to visit you more than I have done. I have not been unmindful of you I can assure you. I have often talked of you and heard your work discussed, and it has always been to me a great pride to know how successful you have been.

I was subjected to great pressure adverse to your movement when we started to establish your Hospital, but I had every confidence that the new idea would justify itself, as it has abundantly done. Let me, therefore, thank you and Doctor Flora Murray—not only for what you have done for the country, but for what you have done for me personally. I should have been an object of scorn and ridicule if you had failed, but I never for a moment contemplated failure, and I think we can now congratulate ourselves on having established a record of a new kind.