Description
Uberi, Papua, 1942-10. In the first operation performed by the surgical team attached to 2/4th Field Ambulance, a Medical Officer (MO), VX39117 Captain Douglas Robert Leslie (centre, left), sets a fractured femur caused by a gunshot wound in a soldier who has been carried back from the front on a stretcher for three days by a native Papuan carrier team. The operating table is a makeshift piece of bush handicraft fashioned out of cut-down saplings, while the sole illumination for the operation is provided by a hurricane lamp (not in view). The anaesthetist for the operation is NX34655 Captain Alan Oliver Watson (not in view), the unit Dental Officer, who is being given his first practical lesson in the administration of a general anaesthetic by another MO, NX70195 Captain Alan Victor Day (not in view). The anaesthetic they are using consists of ether from a bottle whose label indicates that it was first issued to an AIF field ambulance in France in 1918.
Details
Accession Number
P02424.025
Classification
Photograph
Object Type
Black & white - Film copy negative
Physical Description
Colour: Black & white
Copyright
Copyright expired - public domain
Conflicts
Units