T H E QUEEN'S HOSPITAL, SIDCUP

By H. P. PICKERILL, C.B.E., M.D., M.S., F.R.A.C.S.

THE Queen's Hospital at Sidcup in Kent was unique in its organisation and conception ; in this Sir Arbuthnot Lane, as consulting surgeon to the Aldershot Command, played a prominent part. The fundamental idea was that it should be a British Empire Hospital to which all wounded soldiers with facial losses should be sent from all theatres of the 1914-18 war. Thus it was divided into four sections, British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand, each autonomous and staffed by its own officers. The British section, however, counted as two sections and took two-fifths of the patients. The remaining sections took one-fifth each. When the Americans arrived they had no section to themselves but were attached in equal numbers to the existing sections. They came and went and were replaced by others. There are ten U.S.A. officers (surgical and dental) in the photograph--distinguish- able by their uniforms or hats--but there were many others both before and after ; amongst these were Vilray Blair and Ferris Smith. The officers in charge of these sections are seated in the front row: Major Gillies, Officer-in-Charge British ; Lt.-Col. Newland, Officer-in-Charge Australian; Major Waldron, Officer-in-Charge Canadian ; and Major Pickerill, Officer-in-Charge New Zealand.

Lt.-Col. Colvin, a retired Indian A.S.C. officer, was in command of the whole hospital. He was a wise and skilful administrator. He did not know any medicine and claimed that that was a positive advantage from an administrative point of view. It worked excellently--an example which might be followed with advantage. The remaining seated officers are, from the left: Major Stellwagen (U.S.A.) ; Major Dorrance (U.S.A.) (deceased) ; and Major Wheeler, R.A.M.C. Quartermaster.

The officers standing are the surgical, dental, and ana:sthetist officers on the staffs of the four sections. The size of the staff will give some idea of the amount of work which was done, for everyone was working hard all day and every day. There were six operating theatres running to capacity daily. The greatest difficulty was to find beds for the convoys which kept coming in, so that numerous convalescent auxiliaries were established to which patients with nearly healed wounds could be transferred; these were in addition to regular Dominion convalescent hospitals.

The dental technicians, artists, photographers, modellers on the staffs of each section, are not in the photograph.

Although each section was self-contained and autonomous there was a common record office open to all; so that if the officer-in-charge of one section was too busy to go along and see how the officer-in-charge of another section dealt with some particular case, he could next day read all about it in the record office, and adopt the new method himself if he wished on the day following. Thus was progress speeded up,

Prior to the establishment of this .hospital all facial wounds with large losses were treated by masks of electrolytically depqsited silver on plaster moulds built up to normal and painted all this under the ~ direction and persuasion of Professor Tonks of the Slade School (who was qualified medically but had deserted medicine for art). His personality and enthusiasm for this means of "restoration "

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THE QUEEN'S HOSPITAL, SlDCUP 249

completely dominated the scene for nearly two years. I t was the soldiers themselves who defeated it by coming back and saying: " These blankety tin faces are no good to us. Can't you give us something that we can wash and shave and won't fall off in the street ? " The challenge was accepted and massive grafts, not previously contemplated as possible, were soon found to be practicable, and " t i n faces " were a thing of the past. It would be interesting to know what has happened to them all.

The whole hospital was an excellent example of the harmonious interlocking of the forces of the British Empire and U.S.A.

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