Foreign News: Encouraging Words

“In connection with the medical bulletins issued periodically from Buckingham Palace,” warned King George’s doctors, “it should be remembered that while the King’s gradual progress toward recovery has been uninterrupted and although no complications have arisen so far, there will inevitably be a period of some anxiety for the next week or ten days.” That was the tenor of bulletins all week; doctors did their best not quite to dispel all anxiety.*

Hundreds of Londoners continued to stop at the Palace gates on their way to work, at lunch hour or in the evening, to read the latest bulletins, penciled in bold capitals and hung on the railing in a gilt frame: “The King has gained strength during the day”; “After another restful night, the King continues to gain strength”; “The King has been able to take some nourishment.”

Why did the doctors insist that he was not yet out of danger? One London medical man explained it this way: “For the first two days after such an operation, you watch for shock, see that your patient has sufficient blood supply and hope you haven’t killed him. Within four days any infection caused by the operation itself begins to show. This has to be watched for the fifth, sixth and seventh days. During that time you hope that a clot of blood has been forming and attaching itself to the severed vessels. In seven to ten days after the operation, the stitches on these vessels begin to weaken and dissolve. Unless the blood clots have formed properly, you have a serious case of secondary hemorrhage.”

On the fourth day after his operation, King George was well enough to sign a warrant appointing Queen Elizabeth, his two daughters, the Duke of Gloucester and his sister, the Princess Royal, to serve as Counselors of State during his illness. It was a routine precaution: a council composed of adult members of the royal family is always appointed when the monarch leaves the country or is unable to go about his royal business.

As the tenth day approached, although official anxiety persisted, most Britons read reassurance in the news that Princess Elizabeth planned to leave for Canada on Oct. 7. “If things were really bad,” reasoned King George’s subjects, “she would have canceled the trip altogether.” The King himself got a word of encouragement in a letter from an eight-year-old subject in Hainault, Essex. “Dear King,” it said, “I am sorry to hear that you are ill and I hope you will soon be better. Daddy tells me that Mr. Price Thomas is one of your doctors, so I am writing to tell you as I had a serious lung operation done by him, and now I am very fit and well. He is a very kind and clever man. Love from Jill Stebbings.”

* For details of the operation, see MEDICINE.