HealthAchievers

South Australian Hugh Cairns, Oxford surgery professor/brigadier's head care saves world war lives by thousands

South Australian Hugh Cairns, Oxford surgery professor/brigadier's head care saves world war lives by thousands
As a brigadier in the British army medical corp during World War II, Hugh Cairns introduced compulsory helmets for motorcycle dispatch riders and mobile neurosurgical units for the battlefields.

Hugh Cairns  – Howard Florey’s predecessor as a Rhodes scholar from Adelaide University – had built up such an international repute as a neurosurgeon that he was flown immediately to treat figures such as American general George S. Patton in 1946 during World War II.

But Cairns, who went from Oxford professor to brigadier in the British Army medical corp during the war, had a much broader effect on bringing neurosurgery to treating head trauma during battle, saving thousands of lives.

Cairns designed mobile neurosurgical units with neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, and ophthalmic surgeons. He also created the combined services hospital for head injuries at Oxford. Cairns also introduced the compulsory crash helmets for dispatch motorcycle riders and cut their rate mortality by more than 50%.

The war had interrupted Cairns tenure of the first in the Nuffield chair of surgery at Oxford from 1937 and being elected a professorial fellow of Balliol College. Cairns left the London clinic in good hands, characteristically taking copies of his case records, clinical photographs and pathological material with him. He was a pioneer in employing a medical artist in his theatres during 18 creative months.

During the war, when Cairns at once became adviser on head injuries to the ministry of health and neurosurgeon to the army, rising to brigadier. A new base hospital for head injuries was started at St Hugh's College where “The Nutcrackers Suite” became a neurological unit of prime importance.

Cairns was active in developing the use and technique of penicillin treatment developed at Oxford by Howard Florey. Having studied the technique of penicillin treatment of pneumococcal meningitis, and tuberculous meningitis with streptomycin, Cairns later became interested in leucotomy.

Knighted in 1946, Cairns was elected the next first year as Sims Commonwealth professor appointed by the Royal College and given the honorary degree of medicine by Adelaide University. He enthusiastically supported medical research starting at the Australian National University. He travelled widely and in his later years administrative and ambassadorial duties but he remained the “good doctor'”.

He also was active and a competitive tennis player and music lover. He believed himself to be  “very normal” – a claim denied by his own excellence. He faced his own cancer stoically and died in the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1952.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

Boys in Freeman Street, Adelaide city, in 1860. The poorer parts of the city, particularly in the west, were rife with public health problems in the 19th Century.
Health >
Adelaide city in 1870s racked with health problems; dirty water, poor sanitation from lack of proper drainage
READ MORE+
Adelaide Hospital matron Maude Thackthwaite (left) and night nurses superintendent Margaret Burke, both British trained, worked at the hospital in 1889-91 and brought in new training standards and style of uniforms for nurses shown at right.
Women >
Johanna Briggs first nurse and matron at Adelaide Hospital in 1849 before British training system arrives
READ MORE+
The cottage for ovariotomy treatment can be seen to the left of the Adelaide Hospital main buildings in the 1870s. Image by Samuel White Sweet, courtesy State Library of South Australia
Women >
Ovariotomy for female 'menstrual madness' and nymphomania a first 1870s speciality at Adelaide Hospital
READ MORE+
Trajan Nutrition chief executive officer Marco Baccanti and Adelaide University professor of functional food science Robert Gibson. At right: The Trajan blood micro sampling devices.
Health >
Adelaide expertise creates Trajan devices to allow micro blood samples to be taken simply and at home
READ MORE+
Adelaide Hospital in 1894, with a new building (in the foreground) to take pressure off overcrowding. Image by Ernest Gail, courtesy State Library of South Australia
Government >
After the first awful infirmary, a basic Adelaide Hospital opened in 1841 and expanded in 1856
READ MORE+
Some of the remote-location member services of the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia. Image courtesy Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia
Health >
The Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia guardian and advocate for a broad network of services
READ MORE+