Bungling doctor sent poet 'into that good night':
DYLAN Thomas might have had good cause to rage against the dying of his own light after it emerged a bungling doctor, rather than chronic alcoholism, brought about the poet’s demise.
According to a new biography published tomorrow, the author of Under Milk Wood was found by doctors to be suffering from pneumonia when he was admitted to the New York hospital where he died in November 1953, aged 40. [...]
Thomas had complained he could not breathe and was "suffocating", but he was not diagnosed with pneumonia until nearly 24 hours later.
His personal physician, Dr Milton Feltenstein, initially decided he had delirium tremens and ignored the possibility of a chest infection.
Feltenstein injected the poet with three doses of morphine, which the biographers say restricted his breathing. After the third dose, Thomas’s face turned blue and he sank into a coma.
Doctors at St Vincent’s hospital, New York, took three hours to restore his breathing, but his brain had been too starved of oxygen and he remained in deep coma until he died four days later. [...]
This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy
on Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 9:23 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
» Post a Comment