The macabre tale behind stomach pump
The Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust collection holds a number of fascinating Victorian medical and surgical instruments. Each instrument was manufactured with extreme precision, usually incorporating rare materials such as ivory, ebony, gold and silver.
One such instrument is a stomach pump, beautifully housed in a customdesigned mahogany box, the interior of which is lined with brown velvet with specific indentations for each piece of the apparatus.
The components of the pump include a large syringe, three ivory nozzles, both a long and short hose and two brass connectors. Invented in 1767 by Scottish physician Alexander Munro, the stomach pump’s function was to flush the contents of a patient’s stomach.
The doctor inserted the hose through the mouth or nose of the patient into the stomach. Through the hose he pumped large amounts of fluid and then reversed the procedure by sucking it out along with any contaminant.
Blazoned across the length of the syringe is “Savigny & Co, 67 St James Street”. Savigny & Co resided in London, 1840-1875 and were wholesale and retail cutlers (makers of cutlery), surgical instrument makers and manufacturers of patent razors.
To cover all medical eventualities, doctors had in their possession an arsenal of instruments to treat their patients. When Dr Frederick de Lisle was called upon to attend the unfortunate Thomas Fox, he took with him a stomach pump.
As a young man living in England, Fox joined the 2nd Battalion of the Regiment of Foot (Buckinghamshire) 14th Regiment. His military career included active service during the Crimean War including the final siege that led to the fall of Sebastopol, 1855. When the British Government ordered the 14th Regiment to New Zealand in 1857, he had risen to the rank of sergeant.
Before leaving, Fox married Catherine Hurley and like many military wives and their families, she travelled with the regiment to their military destinations. In January 1861, 200 men from the 14th Regiment arrived at Napier port, sent to relieve the 65th Regiment who had been stationed in Hawke’s Bay since 1858.
By 1863, the New Zealand
Government, unable to sustain the cost of maintaining a large British force of over 14,000 men, endorsed Sir Frederick
Weld’s “Self Reliance” policy to have the Imperial Troops withdrawn. The 14th Regiment was the last military group to occupy the Gore-Browne Military Barracks on Mataruahau/Scinde Island, before leaving Napier in 1870.
Thomas Fox resigned his commission and settled with his family in Napier where he was employed as drill instructor to the Napier Volunteer Companies. He was then the officer-incharge of the Napier Immigration Barracks, previously the military barracks. In 1885, when the buildings were no longer required for immigration purposes, they were re-designated as the Charitable Aid Refuge. Fox was appointed secretary, relieving officer and depot-master of the refuge, positions he reportedly “filled with credit”.
Fox died from a “paroxysm of insanity” on August 3, 1886. Giving evidence at the inquest, Catherine revealed her husband was not happy in his position at the refuge, as it “caused him so much worry”.
To alleviate his problems, he had been drinking excessively and because he had sustained “a head injury during active service” he “would easily get excited when he drank” and on occasion would have to be “restrained from injuring himself and others”.
At 6.30pm on Monday August 2, Fox arrived home from the Criterion Hotel where he had got into a dispute. He was extremely drunk and violent and threatened to pour carbolic acid down his wife’s throat “if he could get hold of her”.
His three sons managed to restrain
Fox “without violence” by strapping him to the bed. At about 10pm Fox calmed down sufficiently to have the straps removed.
During the night Fox was heard getting up and “going into his office where the hore-hound beer” was kept and having a drink. At daybreak, Catherine who was sleeping in another room, heard Thomas get up and again go into the office.
Catherine sent her youngest daughter Lucy to fetch Dr Keyworth, the Surgeon Superintendent of Napier Hospital. Instead of attending the invalid, the doctor merely instructed that the patient be given a mixture of mustard and milk.
Catherine endeavoured to get Fox to swallow the concoction without success as his throat was severely burnt from swallowing acid in his insanity.
Catherine again sent for Dr Keyworth and when he finally arrived he merely put a “bottle of hot water on deceased’s feet”. In his evidence the doctor retorted that “when he first saw deceased he considered him beyond the reach of any remedy” and the “poor man was moribund – pulseless and the pupils fixed”.
Catherine’s neighbours urged her to summon another doctor. Dr de Lisle came instantly, and found Fox “lying upon the bed in a state of collapse” unable to speak. Using a stomach pump, he “several times washed out the acid using oil and warm water” after which he pumped “the beaten up whites of eggs” into Fox’s stomach. Fox, suffering great pain, died while the doctor was in attendance.
Father Grogan, the local Catholic priest, performed Fox’s funeral service at Napier’s cemetery. Military volunteers were instructed to attend in full uniform, “but without arms or side-arms”. Catherine was left “in very poor circumstances” and a subscription list on her behalf was opened.
The newspaper confidently reported that “doubtless the appeal will be heartily responded to, as the deceased was highly esteemed and very many were indebted to him for advice and assistance in trying times”.