Aust. N.Z. J. Surg. 1992,62,492-494

SURGICAL HISTORY

JOHN LOCKHART GIBSON. DURING THE GALLlPOLl CAMPAIGN 1915

RONALD WOOD

John Lockhart Gibson,’ one of the 40 Founders of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons, was born at Ipswich on 17 July 1860, a few months after Queensland had become a separate colony. His father was the manager of the Bank of New South Wales.

Gibson was educated at Ipswich Grammar School.* When he was 15 years old his Scottish parents took him to Edinburgh to complete his edu- cation. At Edinburgh University he studied medi- cine, graduating with First Class Honours in 1881 and obtaining a Doctorate of Medicine with a gold medal in 1885. Graduating in the previous year were Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Hol- mes. and Alexander M~Corrnick,~ Thomas Ander- son Stuart and Robert Scott Skirving, all of whom became well known in Sydney. Gibson’s later studies in diseases of the ear, nose and throat and eye took him to Vienna, Berlin and London. At the request of his parents, he rejected an academic career in Britain and returned to practise in Bris- bane, then a city of 85000 people without a uni- versity or medical school. He was appointed an Honorary Physician to the new Hospital for Sick Children in 1886 and Honorary Ophthalmic Sur- geon in 1894. The first Resident Medical Officer of that Hospital was Alfred Jefferis Turner who formed a formidable team with In 1892, at the Inter Colonial Medical Congress, they report- ed a case of a child with anaemia caused by hook- worm. Gibson was a Vice President of the Inter Colonial Medical Congress at the time. They and others also reported 10 cases of lead poisoning in children. A decade later, Gibson found the source of the lead on his own verandah. He had the dried powdered paint analysed and lead carbonate was found. It took nearly 20 years before he and others persuaded the Queensland Parliament to pass legis- lation banning the use of lead based paint in build- ings accessible to children. In the 1890s and early

Presented to the Section of History of Surgery and Anaesthe- sia, Royal Australian College of Surgeons, Sydney, 8 May 1991.

Correspondence: Dr R. Wood, Wickham House, 155 Wickham Tce, Brisbane, Qld 4000, Australia.

Accepted for publication 25 September 199 1

1900s, Gibson was one of the dominant‘forces in ophthalmology in Australia and New Zealand.

Without any previous military experience, he en- listed in the Australian Military Forces on 20 Sep- tember 1909 and was appointed an Honorary Major in the Australian Army Medical Corps ‘hoping that I might be made use of at a Base Hospital in the event of War’.

World War I began for Australia on 4 August 1914. The Federal Government offered Great Britain the Australian Navy and 20 000 troops for service anywhere under British direction. On 1 November 1914, the first convoy left Albany for training in England but later diverted to Egypt. No. 1 Austral- ian General Hospital was with the first convoy and No. 2 Australian General Hospital with the second.

When John Lockhart Gibson enlisted in the Aus- tralian Imperial Force on 1 May 1915, he joined No. 3 Australian General Hospital as an ophthal- mologist. In more recent times it is unusual for someone to join the services for the first time at the age of 54 but there were many similar cases in World War I.

The hospital embarked in Sydney on the Mooltan on 15 May 19 15 and sailed for England, arriving on 28 June. There the hospital was fully equipped. Lockhart Gibson later wrote ’Owing to the generosity of the Queensland Division of the Red Cross Society, who cabled me 200 pounds to London for the pur- pose of equipping my department, I was able to get all the instruments I required, including a Haab’s magnet.’ While in London he saw his youngest sister Bessie Gibson, an artist, who lived in Paris for 40 years until driven out in the early days of World War 11. She painted his portrait in miniature.

The Royal Navy had tried unsuccessfully to force entrance through the Dardanelles to knock Turkey out of the war. A land attack was then planned to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula.6 Australian, New Zealand, British and French forces landed there on 25 April against stiff opposition. Progress was very slow and casualties heavy. There was a great lack of accommodation for these casualties. They were cleared from the battlefield and from the beaches efficiently but there were insufficient hospital ships and too few hospitals for the number of casualties which were taken to Egypt or Malta. On 9 May

JOHN LOCKHART GIBSON 493

1915 the War Office in London was asked for two more hospitals, each of 1040 beds.

It was decided that casualties would be taken from Gallipoli to Lemnos, a Greek Island with a magnificent harbour, Mudros. Lemnos was only 4 h from the fighting, while Egypt and Malta were 2 days. No. 1 and No. 2 Australian Stationary Hos- pitals were sent to Lemnos and expanded from 200 to lo00 beds. The No. 3 Australian General Hospi- tal was sent to Lemnos on the west bank of the harbour, the male staff arriving on 29 July and the remainder on 5 August. Unfortunately the great bulk of its general hospital equipment did not arrive for 3 weeks. The staff landed on a bare roadless hillside without tents or equipment, without water supply other than that from the ships in the harbour, no sanitary provision and little transport.

By September, the hospital site was beginning to assume the appearance of a large hospital centre, all in tents. By this time the second phase of the Gallipoli Campaign had passed and with it the surgical but not the medical crisis. Sir Alexander McCormick and his fine surgical team with the third Australian General Hospital had been almost wasted.

Lieutenant Colonel H. L. Eason RAMC the Con- sulting Ophthalmic Surgeon on the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force arrived in Egypt in September 1915 and inspected the facilities in his area.’ He wrote:

During the Gallipoli Campaign considerable anxiety was felt by the medical authorities in Egypt and Mudros as to the treatment of ophthalmic injuries, as to whether any risk of sympathetic ophthalmia was being incurred owing to undue delay in the removal of the damaged eyes.

I found that owing to the prevailing naval and military difficulties it was purely a matter of chance when a soldier wounded on the Peninsula eventually arrived at hospital. He was put on a hospital ship and might be put off at Mudros or be carried on, without disembarking, either to Alexandria or Malta in which case he might not arrive at a hospital where he could see an eye specialist until a week or 10 days had elapsed after the injury. As success in the treat- ment of injuries of the eye depends almost entirely on the rapidity with which the treatment is commenced it seemed to me essential that all cases of ocular injury should be put ashore at Mudros and not brought down to Egypt or Malta. There was at Mudros, in the 3rd Australian General Hospital a most efficient ophthalmic department under the care of Major Lockhart Gibson, a well known ophthalmic surgeon of Brisbane. The department was equipped with a Haab’s magnet and an extensive outfit of instruments and there was a skiagraphic department adjacent. It was apparent therefore, that the ideal arrangement would be for all eye injuries to be put ashore at Mudros and sent to the 3rd Australian General Hospital . . . On my making representation

to this effect to the Principal Director of Medical Services, Mediterranean Expeditionary Forces, in- structions were at once issued that this should be done.

Lockhart Gibson wrote of his work at Mudros in the last 3 months of the Campaign, stating that the records of 126 inpatient eye cases had been preserved. Half of these were injuries attributable to shrapnel, bombs, bullets and indirect injuries. There were 16 intra-ocular foreign bodies and the giant magnet was used for some of these with good visual results. A smaller magnet was not strong enough. Fourteen eyes were enucleated because of injuries caused by projectiles. In no case did he have to remove both eyes but one had little sight remaining in the second eye. There was no sympa- thetic ophthalmia. His outpatients was very busy, the new cases numbering more than 1000 and com- ing from other units and hospitals all over the island and from ships in the harbour.

A. G. Butler pointed out in his official History of Australian Army Medical Service 1914-18, that the total casualties in sick and wounded in the Darda- nelles during these operations up to 8 September were about 50 0o0, 30 OOO wounded and the remain- der sick.8 There were a further 50000 casualties in September and October 1915 of which 6000 were wounded and 44000 were sick. Many had dysen- tery and diarrhoea. The three chief factors appear- ing to have contributed to the special difficulties experienced in the evacuation and disposal of casualties were: first, the large numbes of sick in addition to the wounded; second, the medical preparations were begun when they should have been completed; and third, the medical services had been involved in the delay of development of the intermediate base at Lemnos.

After a visit in early November from Lord Kitch- ener, the British War Minister, it was decided to evacuate all troops from Gallipoli.’ This brilliantly conceived operation was completed on 20 Decem- ber 1915 without loss in the last day.

After evacuation, all was doom and gloom at No. 3 Australian General Hospital. The only cheer- ful person was Lockhart Gibson who pointed out that the success of the evacuation almost made up for the loss of the peninsula. He became known as the ‘hopeless optimist’.

No. 3 Australian General Hospital left Lemnos for Abbassia, not far from Cairo. Gibson returned to Australia on the Australian Hospital ship Kuroolu, leaving Suez on 5 July 1916. His record shows ‘term of service completed (12 months)’.

His appointment was terminated in Brisbane on 28 August 1916. His war service increased his ad- miration for the Australian soldier. For the remain- der of his working life, he was consulted by many returned soldiers and sailors, and most were not

494 WOOD

charged a fee. He was the Consultant Ophthal- mologist to the Repatriation Commission until his son Walter took over the position in the 1930s. The Returned Servicemen League conferred Life Mem- bership on him in recognition of his service.

In 1940 the Ophthalmological Society of Aus- tralia elected him its third Federal President. lo He died in 1944 at the age of 84 years.

References WGQD R. (1981) John Lockhart Gibson, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 8, pp. 652-3. Mel- bourne University Press, Melbourne. John Lockhart Gibson Queensland (1900) Alcazar Press (n.d.) MILLER D. (1986) Sir Alexander McCormick, Aus- tralian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 10, pp. 236-7.

Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. 4 . THEARLE J . (1990) Alfred J@eris Turner, Australian

Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 12, pp. 288-9. Mel- bourne University Press, Melbourne.

5. DODS L. (1961) Early paediatrics in the antipodes, (Inaugural Jefferis Turner - Lockhart Gibson Memorial Oration). Med. J . Aust. 841.

6. BEAN C. E. W. (1921) The Story of Anzac, Vol. I . Australian War Memorial, p. 253.

7 . Ophthalmic Practice in the Mediterranean and Egyp- tian Expeditionary Forces (1915-18). In: Guys Hos- pital Reports, Vol. XX, pp. 62-1 14.

8. BUTLER A. G. (1930) Oficial History ofthe Austral- ian Medical Services 1914-18, Vols, I, I1 and 111, Australian War Memorial, p. 388.

9. BEAN C. E. W. (1924) The Story ofAnzac, Vol. 11, Australian War Memorial, p. 792.

10. Obituary John Lockhart Gibson (1944) Med. J . Aust. 2; 649.