1948-07-03 — Page 4

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1948.

First surgeon to operate inside a living heart

YOUNG-LOOKING 'man,"

with a firm jaw and oyes that often twinkle beneath their spectacles, drives up to London working day from

every

Winbledon.

He is one of the greatest heart surgeons in the world, and within his own heart at this moment there is a splendid, inspiring joy,

For London-born Russell Claude Brock, aged 45, has gaz- ed upon the inside of the human heart while it pulses with life. He is the first man to operate successfully on the internal atructure of the heart since the work of the experimentalists ended in failure a quarter of a century ago.

In his strong, slender hands may lie the final mastery of the chief organ of the human body,

His Own Design

His triumphis, over which he re- were announced moins cautious,

Brlilsh recently in the

Medical Journal.

It told how he operated Inside the hearts of three girls, aged 11, 18, and 23. le used on instrument designed by himself to inspect the valves of their hearts under direct vision, and another of his own fashioning to remove an obstruc- tion in the valves.

The 11-year-old girl, blue of skin from six months, had never been able to walk more than 100 yards without distress, and usually squat- led because standing upright was too fatiguing.

Mr Brock operated un her Guy's Hospital in February. When he Inst saw her a few weeks ago she was of good pink colour and could run.

The 18-year-old girl could not walk at all outside the house winier 'and, in a cool summer, could sarely manage more than 50 yards. She, too, squatted after walking because she found nothing relieved her discomfort more quickly. She was operated on in February,

can

Today she no longer squats, the blueness of her skin has almost entirely disappeared, and she breathe without dmculty. Slight paralysis of her left leg remains to be cured.

The third girl had, all her fo found breathing a great strain. Last year, after years of seldom being able to walk more than 50 yards, she had to stay in bed or on a couch. She had always squaited, and even slept with her legs curled.

Famous Hospital

After the operation, in which the valves of her heart were dilated and an obstruction in the pulmonary artery cut out, her colour turned from blue to pink.

Mr. Brock

Unil this year there prevailed the belief that the heart was ure- touchable surgically.

to

Albert Biroth in 1883 said that the surgeon who attempted trent a wound of the heart would lose the respect of his colleagues.

In the United States about 25 years ago a team

of surgeons attempted direct operations. All but one of 13 operations proved fatal

sinco Many medical men have

Buccessfully ori vessels operated

near the heart. Early round or

Alfred this year, in London, Dr Binlock, of Baltimore, demonstrated his skill as a surgeon in this way, but he never entered the heart it- self.

Blalock's method was to join two heart to arteries exterior to the ensure an adequate blood flow,

He by-passed the real trouble- the partial closing of the pin-hole valve inside the heart through which the blood stream is normally pump- ed.

Mr Brock Baw flint the burden

P

GILES

World

CANRDA DRYD [GINGIA ALL

ON

BROADWAY

"You'd have thought eight million population in New York was plenty."

Every

ge

produces

its

IPAUL

In

And Out Of Parliament

By ERNEST THURTLE, M.P.

LONDON,

TN our perilous economic situation, it was a

I triumph for good sonso that the engineers re-

fused to declare for strike action to support wage demands,

Political labour needs all tho support it can get from trade union leaders these days when industrial disputes can have calamitous résulta,

Communist influence, spurred on by the Pollitt call of some time ago, aims at em- barrassing the Government in this way.

The great mass of trade unionists do not want to cause such trouble, but they are some- times tricked into doing so.

And who but its enemies wants to see the Government, mortally stricken by its trado unionist friends?

HAROLD WILSON, the young President of the

Board of Trade, who recently ably defended the film pact with America, is firmly established as a successful parliamentarian.

His promotion to front rank, with a seat in the Cabinet, was unusually rapid, but he has justified the Premier's confidence, and may without oxaggeration be called a "And."

A great variety of subjects come under hla control, but he succeeds in creating the impres- slon that he is master of them all.

Liko Goldsmith's schoolmaster, ono marvels that one small head can carry all ho knows.

If the fortunes of tho polls are kind to him. Wilson should travel for, having started so well so early in life.

BOY WONDER

IERINO GAMBA, at the

age of ten, has been drawing the crowds to Festival, Harringay Musical

on the heart of the "blue baby" where he successfully conducted was thus increased by the Ameri-the Liverpool Philharmonie сап method, andl the organ was Orchestra. So yet another pro- weakened by a leak set up.

digy is with us.

Greatest Test

the

So once again he returned to the central problem that had obsessed him throughout his training as a heart surgeon:- When

one rzamines heart post-mortem in patients dying of valvular disease,” he has written, "and contemplates the minute size of the orifice through which the whole life-

of the body las to be forced, it is impossible not to feel that this simple mechanical obstruction must be capable of relief by surgery." He came to the conclusion that the

made prodigious strides

In anaesthetica and blood transfusion

the fallure since

heart of the plancers of the last generation made it possible to attempt the so-called impossible once again.

Yet, when he first opened up a

mal

But some of the 'duds' were really great

By GWYN LEWIS

member of an ecclesiastical synod in Berlin and of the Royal Academy there. He be came a doctor of philosophy at 14.

Kenneth Wolf, of Cleveland, Ohio, could talk perfectly at four months, read at one, and matriculated at nine.

years

THE THE rebels of yesterday, how do

they stund? Take, for example, Richard Cressman, the gifted mem- ber for Coventry East.

Recently, I heard this sometime

make Oxford don

ឆព excellent the university speech la apposing franchise, and was thereby led to speculate on his chances of getting office in this

Parliament. Well-informed,

vigorous, decidedly eloquent, he is without doubt of Front Bench calibre, and would be a noticeable addition to the present Ministerial team.

taken into the team?

Who can say?

and

Richard

of

forgiven and

now be

Unfortunately, somewhat over a year ago he was hitting the head- Yehudi Menuhin clamoured for a violin when three years years of age was a student of at 17, and returned in adult Peter Hodgson, of St. Mary's. Ines as a leader of revolt against the Government's foreign policy, old. Today, at 32, he is regard- philosophy,

life--but he was a failure.

lane, Cranham, Essex, wrote a and thereby justly incurred the dis- concerto in an air raid shelter approval of his leaders. ed 118 the foremost violin He died before he was five.

SINCE then, I believe, John Stuart Mill, the philo. at 15. virtuoso.

Mozart at six was playing

Ten sopher, began Greek when he

ago Roswitha has been a model of party loyalty, the Emperor

perhaps on the issue Prodigies, say the medical Bach before

Palestine.. men, are the outcome of abnor- Francis 1., but lived only to 35. was three; at six he had read Bitterlich exhibited 400 of her except

Xenophon, Herodotus, parts of paintings and drawings in

Will he, bis eins the glands, especially William James Sidis, wonder Lucian, Diogenes Laertius and London-all done between the his virtues remembered, pituitary, the pineal, and the

age of three and 17., child of the United States, aix dialogues of Plato, adrenal glands.

could read and write at two, Lord Macau- spoke French, Russian, Eng lay wroto . lish, German, with some Latin universal his- and Greek at eight, and at 11 tory when lectured on the fourth dimen- seven. A year 'afon to a gathering of pro- later he

fessors.

turning his at- tention to the conversion of tho natives of Malabar to

Others believe that prodigies are reincarnations of the dead.

Anxious parents

..

It is true at least that pro- digies are an anxiety to their parents, who fear that their But at 25 he was earning £5 physical development will not a week in an office, and he died. living heart in February that of keep pace with their pheno- at 46. the 10-year-old "blue baby" hemenal mental growth. realized he was subjecting his pro- fessional reputation to its greatest test,

He was aware, also, of the tre- mendous risk he was taking.

While the wound he had made

was

Soon she was able to move paris

All London went to Drury---Christianity.. of her body and sit in a choir most

Inne in 1805 to see 13-year-old- Some prodigies indeed burn william Henry

John Ruskin of the day.

West Betty- Guy's in

most celebrated

themselves out, dying early, like the Young Roscius-play Ham- was a bookworm the hospital in Britain for treatment of

spent meteors. the heart, and Mr Brock is Its

let, Richard III., and Macbeth. at five; his first poem was. writ- leading heart surgeon.

Christian Heinecken talked

The House of Commons ad- ten at seven. Yet, although he decided to was being sutured, and he knew within a few hours of his birth journed early to emble mem- They called him specialise in the chest and heart,

that his patient was to live, heat Lubeck in 1721, could repeat bers. to see him. The theatre "the it is only la the inst two years walked ot once to the nearest that he developed the technique telephone and rang the mother to and confidence to enter □ realin say all was weit.

of surgery which had daunted the finest skill of the age.

passages from the Bible at one. curned £17.210 in 28 nights. answer any question on geo-

graphy at two, speak French Betty had begun his stage SIDNEY RODIN and Latin at three, and at four career at 11. He quit the stage

These Americans libel

THERE is no doubt at ull

that American feeling against Britain has become Letters sharply antagonistic.

from my friends there tell me of organised campaigns against the purchase of British goods, the booing of British alms (not for their quality but for their origin) and a constant stream

of Perfidious Albion letters in the Press.

As usual with the Americans, the outburst is emotional rather

than logical. Nor is there any use deny ing that part of the blame must be laid at the door of the British Government. No Government in all our history has shown less flair in anticipating pubile response any given set of circumstances.

It was foolish beyond words 10 leave British officers serving with the Arabs once we had officially

of the washed our hands tragle business.

J

whole

Britain

by BEVERLEY BAXTER, MP

To understand the real force of

poct

in

Musical pro- digies are pro- bably the most Government, as we know, but the months are passing, and we are already well over half-time.

The remission of sins is not code of the outside the political

numerous,

Mozart com-

* minuets posed before he was DEPORT has it that the security

"purge" of our Civil four. Beethoven is to be more extensive than was played in public at first contemplated.

all

Servico

and at eight,

this Doubtless

Inquisition his work was unusual in Britain, stems from the published two revelations of-the-Royal--Com- in Canada. mission on Espionage years later.

The story of that probe (told in "by brief In The Soviet Sples," Hummel gave Richard Hirsch) rends Hkc concerts at veritable thriller.

- at

it

"What's good enough for the conductor is good enough for me on there summer evenings.".. breeches."

Indeed, the гру James Crichton in the six- audience before he was nine.

organisation found aympathisers and

fellow teenth century took his M.A.

Mendelssohn began to compose travellers most useful tools. But degree when he was 15. systematically at twelve. Brahms, the hard core of treachery

Dvorak and Richard Strauss were Communists.. prodigies.

nine, Schubert From clearly emerges the fact act us Communist parties was a composer that

cleven: Fifth Columns for Soviet Russi

Not that the botrayers of State Chopin played a

secrets in Canada were confined to concerto to an Communists.

While a boy he could answer his professors in any of 12 languages. He was killed in a brawl at 22.

And among Englishmen Samuel Wesley played the organ at three and had written on oratorio at

John Evelyn, the seventeenth, eight. It was a terrible thing when we century diarist, entertained a forced a convoy of illegal emigrants

Sir Landon Ronald was playing

plane befora. he could

back to Germany. I said in the 12-year-old prodigy, the son of the House of Commons and repeat the a Dr Clench. Pepys was pre- "Dada." He lived to be 65, words here, that wo should have sent to help examine the boy. sent those ships 10 New York. American money had paid for them

Evelyn recorded, that the task

say

The anthropologist and placer of finger-printing. Slr Franels

and the Americans were entitied to exhausted them for more than Galton, was only two and a half

something for their money,

No wonder the American

the boy, who answered the most con- erudite questions while admir- Under our wide administration science was troubled. No wonder the present anti-British outburst it happy community life was made that the average decant. A wondering the parrot and the paintings

be recognised that anti- possible for nearly half a million knew in his heart that be was in the room. Semitism has been growing steadily Jews, most of whom

must

would have

in the U.S.A. Not only are Jews been murdered had they stayed in barred from many town and country Europe. clubs but there are holels which will not take them as guests.

shirking his duty as a world citizen confronted with a world problem.

It mattered not whether the

glorious outburst of emotional re-history, geography, mathoma-.

when he learned to read.

He knew his multiplication tables at 've, and at six was thoroughly familiar with the Blad and the

Odyssey,

•

OUR SACRIFICE Then came Glubb Pasha. In one questions dealt with the law, Flop' at School

a people over a people had cause to show of the whole blame could be putties, or astronomy, the boy those who as children were com-

It is a paradox, not easy to ex- YE plain, that

kindly $0 should be inflicted with the dark growth of anti-Semitism. theless it is su

Never

When the Nazis burned down the synagogues and smashed the Jewish shops in Berlin in 1937 America's conscience was outraged but

gratitude it was the Jews. Not only had we given them sanctuary, but by our sacrifice of blood and

brought treasure we had

low Hitler's Germany, the despoiler and destroyer of Israel..

on the perfidious Beliishi.

knew all the answers.

to

WAR

No reader of this Canadian story could possibly have any doubt of the necessity for inquiry in Britain.

If the Soviet Governmont, thought It worth while to maintain GO claborate, and pervasive à spy system

to in Canada, is it likely have overlooked Britain as a field of operation?

Obviously the answer is "No."

justification for our own Inquiry.

And in that answer is a complete

JESTS AND JEERS

All men are born equal-but it's what they are equal to that "counts.

·

Many a girl covers more than one Jap in the race to the altar,

At the other end of the scale are parative dullards, but who rose to With the emotional warmth which

fumo in later life. a typical of Americans fiey ordered Nor were these made In the Bourbon whisky fasland of Scutch,

Mr Churchill has confessed put placards in their windows de- fashion of the parrot he admir- being something of a flop at school.

the would sell no led, but were based on reason George Bernard Shaw found school claring that they British goods, and they even sent and knowledge. meticy to Ber Hecht Incorporated to make sure that the Jews Europe went to Palestine Listead of

The troops that fought through slo Europe to the thing came to Pales THEY ARE BARRED did not offer sanctuary to the tine after the war to maintain law doomed people. The lamp of and order. In the dark, from am- TN American eyes Glubb Pasha beberly burns low when it is turned buscades, from windows, the Jewish to America.

tamo the chosen instrument of towards the displaced Jews.

terrorists did foul murder against Beitish duplicity and Imperial greed.

their liberálörs.

The American Government re- but

In

THE TRUTH He was the kind of equation that After the war the remnants of

HAVE zel down these words in the simplest mind could understand. Israel in Europe huddled in their More than that. the existence of camps and mourned the death of fused to share responsibility

the beller that the facts have Clubb Pasha, permitted the Ameri- almost an entire people. So in reserved the right to criticise. The been hidden from the Americans by cans to salve their troubled con- New York men like Ben Hecht, as threat of the Jewish vote in Now a Press (with notable exceptions) science.

pisted by wealthy co-religionists, York paralysed the decent Inten and an Administration which deemed it wider to condenan Britain God that they were not as other paign to send Europe's Jews to Let Americans Imagine the

ings of a British mother who re- I be spared especially Englishmen. All of this requires some blunt Britain had pledged herself to ceived the news that hot bọn who what I have written: speaking With due respect and build a national home in Falestine. had fought from El Alamela to much affection for our cousins I Those were the exact words, Sho Germany had been shot down. by propose to exorcize the right of a had never promised to make Palcs relative to say what is in my mind. tine a Jewishi Stato.

"penal servitudo."

The late Lord Birkenhead failed to win a scholarship, as did tho lato

Lord Baldwin..

Sir Walter Scott's teacher sald

Verdict of Evelyn was: "This boy has more knowledge than most men in the world." ho hod "the thickest head in tho

History does not record the school." subsequent fate of the doctor's. prodigy son.

At last they were able to thank beɛan a inancial and terrorist cam- tions of the Adipinistration tool than áritikonisë ikh' Jewa, Nor will no more than 19 yents, froth.

moon,

Falestine. Not to america.

A baby was recently christened

At Unesco. gather, there was a large gathering ceremony, wa

of cultural relations.

Some wonen possess glamour, others merely clamour.

It's hard to keep the wolf from the door when the daughter of the house invites him in to supper.

In the 80s Earl Grey told his tutor at Oxford he had wasted his time. He was sent down for "in-

· Jean Philippa: Báratter llved corrigible idleness."

It takes a meteorologist to be able to look into à girl's eyes and tell duo castigation for 1721 to 1740. At four, he could of London Transport, never passed

Lord Ashfield, the great organiser whether, speak German, French, and an examinations and Sir Woodman Good breeding consists of conconi- But not even our kinsmen and

business man, said he failed at selves and how little of the other Jewish murderers in Palestine-a our friends all libet. Britaite with Latin; at five he translated the Burbidge, brilliant twentieth-century ing how much we think of bur-

was school.

person Greek Bible; at six he out, receiving-the 'ratort of kath,

inurder financed from America.