Reminiscences of Lawson Tait / [Christopher Martin].

Martin, Christopher, 1866-1933.

Date:: 1921

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Reminiscences of Lawson Tait / [Christopher Martin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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raging bull. I remember once he got into a passion with a telephone operator; and, as he could not lay hands on him or her, he tore down the instrument from the wall and smashed it on the floor. Needless to say his blind rage cost him dearly both in inconvenience and loss of time. He was not often ill, but when he was he was difficult to treat and manage. On one occasion, Mr. Gilbert Barling (as he was then) had to remove a calculus from his urinary tract. Mr. Tait took the anaesthetic very badly, went black in the face, and nearly died. Immediately after the operation, Mr. Barling went off for his holiday and left him in my charge. Need¬ less to say, I told him to keep to a bland milky diet and to stay absolutely in bed. Would you believe it that, when his friend Dr. Donovan called next day, he found him sitting in an armchair by the fire in his dressing-gown with a Tam o’Shanter on his head, a pint of champagne at his elbow, and a big cigar in his mouth. “ Hullo ! ” said Donovan, “ is this allowed? ” “ Oh yes,” said Tait, “ Christopher ordered it !” In spite of this and of his refusal to allow me to use antiseptics to the wounds, he managed to recover. On the fifth day he got up and insisted on leaving Birmingham and driving out to his bungalow at Yardley Wood—against Mrs. Tait’s entreaties and my protests. After his arrival he sent me a defiant telegram : “Arrived safely, temperature normal, had beef and pickles for dinner.” He was a man of great physical strength and tremendous energy, both bodily and mental. I think he was able to do so much work because of his marvellous faculty of sleeping. He could sleep anywhere and at any time. He had often to take long railway journeys. One day he might be called down to operate in Southampton; and, next day, as soon as he got back, be summoned to Inverness. He slept nearly all the time in the train and would arrive after a long night’s journey as fresh as a daisy. I have often seen him finish an operation and sit down and fall sound asleep whilst the second case was being anaesthetised. As an operator he was wonderful. He worked without the least appearance of haste and with marvellous rapidity and dexterity. He was seen at his best in a bad case of pyosalpinx or a hysterec¬ tomy for myoma. Though he encountered appalling difficulties he proceeded silently, swiftly and undauntedly to a triumphant issue. He used no antiseptics but trusted to simple soap and water cleanli¬ ness. This was the great mistake of his surgical career. Had he only accepted Lister’s teaching and done his operations under more aseptic conditions his results (good as they were) would have been marvellous. But he was obstinate, and up to the last refused to accept and practice what he called “ Listerism.”