Mike Houlahan reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for Otago Daily Times:
‘A few decades ago, hit American sitcom M*A*S*H was so ubiquitous it was believed an episode depicting the antics of US army medics during the Korean War was being screened on TV somewhere in the world every minute of the day.
The programme made terms like "meatball surgery" known to millions. But unknown to those millions — and probably most New Zealanders for that matter — was that a Central Otago-born doctor played a leading role in devising the system of frontline military medicine which spawned the likes of the mobile army surgical hospitals and their life-saving emergency techniques.
Douglas Jolly was raised in Cromwell, educated at Otago Boys’ High School and the University of Otago, and by the 1930s had found himself on the exact opposite side of the world, as a volunteer treating casualties of the Spanish Civil War.
Although not a communist, Jolly — who had moved to England to complete training as a surgeon — was definitely left-leaning in his politics. A Christian socialist, he chucked in his studies when on the verge of earning a potentially lucrative surgical qualification and offered his medical skills to the Republican cause.
It was the more glamorous, but also the losing, side, and Jolly’s path crossed that of some of the celebrities who peopled the war. It also meant he was often forced to improvise medical facilities on the fly, frequently with some degree of personal risk attached.’
Read the rest of the review here.
