1. Using acid to cure a skin infection

Thomas S Fletcher was a surgeon at the Bromsgrove Workhouse, Worcestershire. One of his patients, young Henry Cartwright, died in 1842 after being immersed in potassium sulphate – in an attempt to cure “the itch”, or scabies.

2. Mistaking Tincture of Opium for Rhubarb

Mrs Elizabeth Galloway was suffering from inflammation of the bowels. To aid her recovery, she was given a tincture of rhubarb … Unfortunately, the druggist mixed up the wrong remedy; the cup contained laudanum [Tincture of Opium] rather than rhubarb. Mrs Galloway immediately worsened and the doctor was called… she later died.

3. Choosing the wrong bottle

Mary Ramshaw was knocked down and severely fractured her thigh. Dr Lumley was called, and prescribed both a mixture to take and an embrocation. Mrs Ramshaw’s daughter unfortunately administered the medicine from the wrong bottle and Mrs Ramshaw instantly began to convulse. Ten minutes later, she died. The embrocation she had accidentally been given contained belladonna (deadly nightshade).

You can read about more deadly disasters in the full article here.

The MPS regularly publish case reports as an aid to its members, to alert them to pitfalls that have caught their colleagues unawares.

Have you been privy to any first-term disasters? We would love to hear about them.

Its interesting to find many of the images and descriptions are still relevant today, although some of the descriptions are a little ‘brutal’. To the right you can see handwritten notes by a student along with an image describing the excision of a portion of a rib.

We have concluded 3 things.

1. Medical students revision notes were as illegible 00 years ago as they are today. We can’t decipher much of the revision notes shown here (answers on a postcard). There was one bit that we could read that started with Oh-Oh Oh To Touch And… We haven’t printed the rest out of common decency.
2. Writing in flowing fountain pen certainly adds to the drama of revision notes.
3. Although the 1910 book is of exceptional quality and detail, we reccomend using some of the more up to date texts available. Some of our colleagues have even suggested searching the internet, but we’re not too sure about this and prefer to stick to books!

Thanks to Ms K for the donation of the text, we hope to publish some other relevant diagrams in coming months. William Wheeler died in 1943. A telling comment from his obituary in the BMJ from the same year follows:

He was not only a brilliant operating surgeon, a clinician of much wisdom, and an authoritative writer on surgery, but
a man with a great capacity for friendship.