Saturday 26 May 2012

110 years ago . . .


 . . . the flags were out for the coronation of Edward VII. This view looking west along the still narrow Western Road could have been any time from June 1902, when the coronation was first planned to take place, to August. 

Everything had been arranged for EdwardVII to be crowned on  26 June, but two days before on 24 June, Edward was diagnosed with appendicitis. Appendicitis was generally not treated operatively and carried a high mortality rate, but developments in anaesthesia and antisepsis in the preceding 50 years made life-saving surgery possible. Sir Frederick Treves, with the support of Lord Lister, performed a then-radical operation of draining the appendix abscess through a small incision. The next day, Edward was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar.Two weeks later, it was announced that the King was out of danger. Treves was honoured with a baronetcy (which Edward had arranged before the operation)and appendix surgery entered the medical mainstream. 

Edward VII was finally crowned on 9th. August 1902

(with acknowledgements to Wikipedia)

No comments:

Post a Comment

In event of difficulty in adding comment, email:- quedula@gmail.com