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expeditions were always anxious occasions, for the roads were patrolled by Japanese troops, communication between our people and them was impossible, Red Cross brassards were of no protective value and stoppages and incidents were common. Fortunately Campbell and his men suffered no more than slappings and some minor indignities but they did a first-rate job in replenishing our stores. Our messing situation was however precarious in these early months.
The Chinese staff of the hospital, except for a couple or so who had known no other life than Bowen Road for years, had long departed and anything we wanted done had to be done by ourselves.
We had a hospital full of seriously ill men, most of them severely wounded, and we set to work to complete the surgical treatment of the war casualties. In the underground theatres we operated in the morning and evenings, leaving an hour or two in the afternoons to get a blow of fresh air. We could no longer dry-sterilise our operating towels etc., and so we boiled them. The method was effective though, because our clean surgical wounds remained uninfected and grafts including pedicle grafts were accepted cleanly. Surgical procedures were followed by as smooth progress as we could have wished for. Our coal stocks were soon exhausted but theatre sisters and staff were very successful in their improvisations. The supply of electricity from the mains was cut off for a while but the deficiency was remedied by our generators.
We were anxious about the surgical situation. We did not know if our staff would be left to care for our own wounded, but a rumour which spread round the hospital one night soon after our surrender that all doctors were to be moved next day proved to be unfounded, though I always thought that such a specific rumour as this had some kind of basis. It was perhaps at this time that a clear decision was taken by the Japanese as to our future. We were anxious particularly about the effects of wound infection upon the health of patients already undernourished, for we knew that this would certainly hasten the development of deficiency diseases. And so our days were filled.
We were alive to the dangers of undernourishment on a poorly balanced diet especially as the change came about suddenly from the diet to which our troops were accustomed. On 16 April 1942, as surgical specialist, I joined with my specialist physician colleague, Major Gerald Harrison, in drawing attention to the problem in a
CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
165
expeditions were always anxious occasions, for the roads were patrolled by Japanese troops, communication between our people and them was impossible, Red Cross brassards were of no protec- tive value and stoppages and incidents were common. Fortunately Campbell and his men suffered no more than slappings and some minor indignities but they did a first rate job in replenishing our stores. Our messing situation was however precarious in these early months.
The Chinese staff of the hospital, except for a couple or so who had known no other life than Bowen Road for years had long departed and anything we wanted done had to be done by ourselves.
We had a hospital full of seriously ill men, most of them severely wounded, and we set to work to complete the surgical treatment of the war casualties. In the underground theatres we operated in the morning and evenings, leaving an hour or two in the afternoons to get a blow of fresh air. We could no longer dry-sterilise our operating towels etc, and so we boiled them. The method was effective though, because our clean surgical wounds remained un- infected and grafts including pedicle grafts were accepted cleanly. Surgical procedures were followed by as smooth progress as we could have wished for. Our coal stocks were soon exhausted but theatre sisters and staff were very successful in their improvisations. The supply of electricity from the mains was cut off for a while but the deficiency was remedied by our generators.
We were anxious about the surgical situation. We did not know if our staff would be left to care for our own wounded, but a rumour which spread round the hospital one night soon after our surrender that all doctors were to be moved next day proved to be unfounded, though I always thought that such a specific rumour as this had some kind of basis. It was perhaps at this time that a clear decision was taken by the Japanese as to our future. We were anxious particularly about the effects of wound infection upon the health of patients already undernourished, for we knew that this would certainly hasten the development of deficiency diseases. And so our days were filled.
We were alive to the dangers of undernourishment on a poorly balanced diet especially as the change came about suddenly from the diet to which our troops were accustomed. On 16 April 1942, as surgical specialist, I joined with my specialist physician colleague, Major Gerald Harrison, in drawing attention to the problem in a
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