Dr. Macbean Stewart, an advertiser on the 1893 New Zealand Second Sideface
Issue
Macbean Stewart’s New Cure for
Asthma, Diphtheria Croup
 |
| “Francis McBean Stewart.” [Fulton22, p177] |
Francis Macbean (or MacBean or, in earlier times, McBean)
Stewart is one of the most interesting and well-documented advertisers. From
his advertising on stamps and in newspapers, he seems to be merely a shyster
selling quack medicines to the gullible, but we shall see that in reality he lived
a very different life. And it was a rich one: ship’s doctor in frozen weather,
chairman of a lead gold mining company, surgeon performing an ear re-attachment
procedure, enforcer of truancy laws, judge of bagpipe music, patient champion,
and clinician in a bubonic plague case.
The Bad?
 |
Acknowledgement: the National Library of New Zealand |
The advertisement above claims that Stewart’s New Cure is
for the cure of asthma, consumption, croup, hay fever and all allied diseases of the lungs
and throat (and typhoid) which is a very bold claim, since modern
medicine would deploy very different treatments for each of these:
- Asthma arises from the body’s own immune response to allergens such as animal dander, mold and smoke, and nowadays are treated with beta agonists (short term) or corticosteroids
- Consumption (tuberculosis) is a bacterium and is prevented by vaccination else treated by a drugs such as a cocktail of isoniazid, rifampin and pyrazinamide
- Hay fever is also an allergic conditions, typically triggered by pollen, and relieved by antihistamines
- Diphtheria is caused by toxins from the diphtheria bacillus, and prevented via immunization else treated with a diphtheria antitoxin and then antibiotics. In the nineteenth century, if diphtheria led to inflammation of the larynx and thence a hacking cough then the disease was called croup; nowadays diphtheria is defeated and croup symptoms more normally arise from viral infections.
- Typhoid is a bacterial infection from contaminated water, now practically eliminated by advanced sanitation, but treated with antibiotics otherwise.
In another advertisement we learn that his New Cure is
“prepared from the forest and mountain plants of New Zealand.” The purpose of
the initial Maori (“This is good news for all of you”) is unclear: perhaps to attract
all New Zealanders as customers or perhaps to hint that the New Cure is
developed with native medical lore.
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Copyright Fairfax Media, protected by a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. |
Macbean Stewart’s other advertisements regularly included
various testimonials by members of the public such as [GreyRiver1891Nov27p4]:
- “Its effect on my boy was marvelous and relieved our anxiety at one.”
- “The effect upon my son was very marked and decided”
- “I have suffered from very severe asthma for six years, and tried every known remedy; but nothing gives me such relief as the New Asthma Cure. My daughter-in-law found me in the garden a few days ago gasping for break, and unable to move without the aid of two sticks. She hurried away, got a tin of the powder. After inhaling the fumes for a few minutes I was able to walk four miles for with comfort. If I spoke for a month I could not give you a stronger proof of the good it does me.”
 |
As we shall see, Dr. Macbean Stewart was for the most part
an upstanding member of the community, so it is an intriguing thought
experiment to imagine that the tin’s contents might still be available and the
contents’ DNA could be analyzed to determine which “forest and mountain plants
of New Zealand” were used in the New Cure, and what medicinal value can be
ascertained by modern science. Certainly the New Cure could have some
helpful activity since an infusion from the leaves of the kumarahou (a woody
plant), manuka or kanuka was a traditional Maori remedy for coughs, asthma and
bronchitis [AsthmaTradMaoriHeal][AsthmaTradMaoriHealPdf].
Such an experiment could equally easily find no active ingredient, since we
understand Dr. Macbean as a lame city-bound fifty year-old rather than a
botanist out in the field, and worked as a surgeon rather than a scientist
trialing different preparations on different patients. Instead the explanation
seems to be more self-centred: in the minutes from his appearance before the
executive of the Canterbury Medical Association, Macbean Stewart claims his
motivation was “that his paralysis of the leg was progressing and would
probably result in incapacity, with his wife and family lacking any security.”
Although we can be sympathetic, this was “a gross ethical trespass”. [Bennett77] It is an interesting question to what extent that
Macbean was involved in practice: did he acquire the ingredients, have them
dried, ground, packaged, and distributed then advertise them (in
newspapers and on the rear of stamps), or whether he just sold his name and
credentials to someone already in the business.
The “New Cure” was first marketed in 1889. The two royal
colleges in Edinburgh each wrote to Stewart in 1890 “demanding an explanation,
and that if it was not forthcoming then further action would be taken.” The
chapter seemed closed when Dr. Stewart replied to each with an assurance that
the asthma cure would no longer carry his name [Bennett77]
yet his New Cure advertisements did not disappear until at least 1896! [SouthCanterburyTim1896Jan14P1]
We see that Stewart spruiked two more products: Asthma
Tobacco and Grindilla Robusta Cigarettees. Nowadays recommending cigarettes or
tobacco to relieve asthma seems like a shockingly bad idea, but it was not
always so. From 1802 cigarettes made from the stalks and roots of the thorn-apple,
Datura stramonium, were the recommended treatment because of its
effectiveness and the lack of a better alternative. This continued until the
early twentieth century when cigarettes were replaced by other preparations
whose active ingredients, at least initially, were also obtained from Stramonium,
such as atropine [NCBI].
 |
Copyright Allied Media, protected by a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. |
Setting aside the cigarette delivery mechanism, the native
Californian shrub Grindelia Robusta or gumweed has traditional and
anecdotal support and was commonly used until 1960; even today it is it is
still sometimes used to treat certain conditions including congestion and
bronchial issues. In traditional medicine, the herb was usually used orally in
the form of a tea, tincture or liquid extract and used to treat bronchitis. Western
medicine recognized its medicinal potential in the mid-nineteenth century and
it was listed as a herb in the U.S Pharmacopoeia in 1882. At that time Grindelia
Robusta was deployed to treat catarrh bronchitis, whooping cough,
asthma, the common cold and as a natural expectorant [WikiGrindelia][HealthFocGrindelia].
There is also a whiff of self-service in that Macbean
Stewart stepped well outside the domain of his medical expertise to put his
name (and presumably his management skills too, to be sure) on various entrepreneurial
ventures, doubtlessly in exchange for some form of remuneration. The good
doctor was:
- A provisional director of the Ashburton Gas, Coal and Coke Company Ltd [AshburtonHer1878Jul22P3]
- The chairman of directors of the Shamrock Lead Gold Mining Company Ltd [LytteltonTi1894Jan2P59]
- A provisional director for the Bell Hill Gold Mining and Sluicing Company Ltd
For the Bell Hill Sluicing Company, Macbean Stewart made
some in-person tests: “Early in 1893 Mr. F. Macbean Stewart and friends visited
the claim, and had a number of dishes washed, all of which contained payable
gold. They were satisfied with the thoroughly genuine character of the claim,
and left feeling astonished that no determined and methodical effort was being
made to develop such a splendid property. … Bell Hill might, perhaps, be best described
as a huge gravel pit, the sides of which rise as high as thirty to ninety feet,
composed of red wash, gold running all -through, the bottom layers being especially
rich, giving as much as one pennyweight to the dish. Various parties from
Christchurch have prospected this claim, and every dish, (no matter from what
part of the claim taken) has contained gold. This is an experience, we might
point out, which has hardly a parallel in New Zealand, and promises well for
good and rich dividends.” [LyttletonTim1894Apr14P3]
The Peregrinations
F. Macbean Stewart (1838-1906) had a peripatetic life. Born
in Dundee, Scotland, he went to live with his uncle, the Rev Francis McBean, on
the shores of Loch Ness. In 1855 he went to Edinburgh to study medicine and
enrolled at the Royal College of Surgeons. [Fulton22,
p179]
Partway through, perhaps a desire to put his training into
practice or perhaps for sheer wanderlust, Macbean Stewart joined as ship’s
surgeon the steamer Narwhal which, from 1859, undertook annual whaling/sealing expeditions
to the inclement high northern latitudes [FDCA]. Macbean
Stewart continued his studies in between voyages. He joined the steamer for a
final time in 1863. This would prove an unhappy decision, because he
experienced great cold and was severely affected by frostbite leaving him permanently
lame in both feet. To the modern eye, whaling and sealing were tragic businesses. The Narwhal harvested about 10,000 seals per trip, sometimes with little effort: "Should the ice, by reason of wind or tide, be packed together so as to close the waterholes, by which seals could escape, the animals may be captured with little trouble, and when such a chance offers they are clubbed in their hundreds." [Fulton22, p179]
 |
| S.S. Narwhal (center ship), Dundee Screw Whalers, 16 March 1861, The Illustrated London News. Licensed from Bridgeman Images |
He received his LRCP and LRCS diplomas in 1864, after
studying under teachers who ran the gamut of medical practice: from Simpson,
the first physician to demonstrate the anaesthetic properties of chloroform on
humans and helped to popularise its use in medicine, to Warburton Begbie (and
Simpson also!) who happily advocated bleeding. [Fulton22,
p179-180]
Macbean Stewart’s first graduate job was as a medical
officer of Dundee Hospital, then he practiced in Inverness and assumed a broad
range of roles: Medical Officer of Health, Inspector of Shipping (presumably to
determine contagion on incoming vessels), surgeon of the Inverness Dispensary,
and assistant surgeon to the Inverness-shire Highland Light Infantry Militia
and Second Battalion Cameron Highlanders. After four years he left Inverness
and was appointed surgeon on the S.S. Carpentaria, a mail boat running between
Glasgow and New York. This role he fulfilled for two years. [Fulton22,
p180]
Hearing glowing stories of the prosperity of New Zealand, he
shipped aboard as surgeon of the 1085 ton ship City of Dunedin under
Captain Daniel Ross [Fulton22, p179-180]. The ship was
built specifically to carry passengers from the Clyde to Dunedin. Passenger accommodation
was in the ’tween decks, where the space was divided into three by bulkheads:
single women in the after compartment, married amidships, and single men in the
forward compartment. About 130 passengers sailed from Greenock September 27th
1873 and arrived three months and two days later at Port Chalmers on December 29th
1873. [OurStuffCoD]
<XXXX Pictures of City Of Dunedin> [https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22813749,
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23048829,
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23148120]
In 1874 when Macbean Stewart arrived in the town of Milton,
south of Dunedin in the floodplains of the Tokomairiro River, one doctor had
left, one was in indifferent health and the third doctor, Fergusson, wished to
transfer to Dunedin. Furthermore the Tokomairiro district looked good to Macbean
Stewart: the roads were fairly decent and good rider, even if lame, could
comparatively easily cover the work. He made overtures to Fergusson and soon
came to an agreement for Macbean Stewart to take over the Milton practice. [Fulton22, p179]
It certainly was no picnic: over his two-and-a-half years in
Tokomairiro, Macbean Stewart had many dangerous trips visiting patients in the
outlying districts, fording rivers in flood and finding his way over hill and
plain at all hours on horseback. [Fulton22, p180]
While in Tokomairiro, Macbean Stewart married Annie Stevens,
daughter of an architect, in 1875. [BruceHer1875Mar23P5]
Apparently by then a further doctor had transferred to the district, Peter
Stewart, which led to one amusing anecdote:
 |
Acknowledgement: the National Library of New Zealand |
The next year, in 1876, the Stewarts’ first daughter died
and, within a few months, the family transferred to Ashburton and the family
gained its first son.
It was not until Stewart’s mid-fourties that they finally
settled, at a big house at 245 Armagh St, Christchurch in 1881, and there the
family would largely stay until a downsizing shortly before his death in 1906
aged 68.
Details:
- Marriage: [BruceHer1875Mar23P5]
- First daughter’s birth [BruceHer1876Mar14P4] then death [BruceHer1876May02P4]
- Departure from Milton: [BruceHer1876Oct06P4]
- Establishment at Ashburton: [LytteltonTimes1877Jan24P1]
- Births of sons and daughters [AshburtonHer1879May19P2] [AshburtonHer1880Aug21P2] [Star1882Oct17P2] [Star1885Jun20P2]
- His eldest son, Lt Col Douglas McBean Stewart commanded the Canterbury Regiment and was killed with 247 of his men at Gallipoli. [Fulton22, p181] [Bennett77]
- Departure from Ashburton (with banquet): [LyttletonTim1881Jun09P5]
- Establishment at Christchurch: [LyttletonTim1881Jun23P1] [Press1881Sep24P3]
- Macbean Stewart’s obituary from the hometown newspaper of the city where of where he ended his days is (spoiler alert):
 |
Copyright Fairfax Media, protected by a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. |
 |
“Photo of Dr. F. MacBean Stewart”, The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District], Cyclopedia Company Limited, 1903, p115 [CycNZCant03] |
Community Involvement
Macbean Stewart was never just a doctor; rather he was a
member of the community and prepared to develop community activities where he
saw the need. Perhaps because of his lameness, we find that his usual role is
that of organizer, chair or judge.
For instance during his Ashburton stint he became chair of
the Ashburton school committee, and took an active role: enforcing anti-truancy
law [AshburtonHer1878May23P3],
searching for a new headmaster [OtagoDaTim1878Jun28P1],
and as a willing substitute to proctor an examination [AshburtonHer1878Dec17P2].
However during his tenure the district schools received a
mixed and sometimes scathing review by the School Inspectors (“With but very
few exceptions, the scholars presented in Standards VI, V, IV and III have
passed a very unsatisfactory examination. The papers throughout were grossly
careless and inaccurate, showing a very slight acquaintance with the subjects
taught.”). Stewart’s role was to receive the report and remit it to the
headmaster and staff. The headmaster prepared a written response pointing to a
gross turnover of staff (“Six teachers have left us during the year, and their
positions have … been invariably filled with teachers of the first year. Some
of these were beginners …”). [AshburtonGuard1880Dec11P2]
We can speculate that the teachers were lured away by other opportunities in
the new country such as gold mining on the West Coast or at the Martha vein,
discovered in Waihi in 1878.
Macbean Stewart was also one of the founders of Caledonian
societies in each Ashburton and Christchurch; and Vice-President of Ashburton. The
purpose of the Canterbury Caledonian society, according to Stewart was: [LyttletonTim1883May01P6]
- to keep up their Scottish memories and customs, including Camanachd (a game akin to field hockey)
- to develop night schools, with library, reference books and even books for lending
- to welcome and assist Scots newly reaching New Zealand
- to present medals for bravery performed in New Zealand
Macbean Stewart chaired the formation meeting of the
Ashburton Caledonian Society [AshburtonHer1879Mar24P2]
and became its Vice president [Press1881Mar25P3]
He chaired a planning meeting of the first Caledonian Sports
gathering ever in Christchurch in Dec 1881. The gathering, held in early
January, was most successful, and Macbean Stewart contributed on the day as
judge of the Highland dances, music and dress, tossing the caber (the winner dispatched
it 12 yards), throwing the hammer (91 ft 8”), putting the stone (36 ft 5”) and
wrestling. One of Stewart’s sons was awarded the Best Dressed Highlander. [Star1881Dec30P5]
[Press1882Jan02P1]
[Press1882Jan03P3]
The event a year later was a similar success. Macbean Stewart
was vice president of the society and again acted as judge. [LytteltonTim1882Dec18P5]
Macbean Stewart even volunteered his service as judge to the North Canterbury Caledonian
Society’s competition day in Amberley in March 1889 (the event was combined
with the St Patrick’s Day celebrations). [LytteltonTim1889Mar19P3]
Macbean Stewart was a Brother of the United Ancient Order of
Druids, a private fraternal society with origins at the Kings Arm tavern on
Oxford St in London in the eighteenth century. Its goals were fraternal in
nature and the UAOD arm of the Order took membership fees and used them for the
welfare of sick members and their funeral costs. In this article Stewart is
described as addressing “the members as to the Lodge Surgeon’s duties and
expectations.” [LytteltonTim1888Jul10P4]
Such societies played an important role at the time but their membership would
slide after government-administered social security was introduced in the
twentieth century [DruidicDawnNode2459]
[WikiAOOD].
When leaving Ashburton¸ Macbean Stewart was fondly farewelled.
There was a banquet of some sixty friends with haggis (“and more civilized
viands”), toasts, and bagpipes. [LytteltonTim1881Jun09P5]
In Christchurch, Macbean Stewart was voted in as Councillor
and held that position for a time. [LytteltonTim1894Sep14P7]
Progressive Outlook
Macbean Stewart was a supporter of a woman’s right to vote:
“Dr Macbean Stewart said that his warm sympathy had been with this cause
[Women’s Franchise] for many years, and he looked upon the present meeting as
one of the most important that had ever been held in that hall. He hopes that
it would be the beginning of a great power and force, which would spread end to
end of New Zealand … A half-drunken swagger, who could neither read nor write,
had the privilege of recoding his vote; yet an educated, intelligent woman had
no such power. Was this not an injustice?”
Now his endorsement does not entirely accord with modern
political thinking in that he presumes that women would vote as a bloc: “He
[Stewart] did not altogether believe in the one man one vote principle. The
late strike, which had inflicted so much injury upon New Zealand, was the
result of one man one vote, but if women had had a vote, the strike would never
have occurred” and “Look at the terrible evils resulting from the sale of
drink. If women obtained the franchise, they would soon put an end to the
traffic.” [Star189106P4]
Macbean Stewart was also a supporter of Maori rights, albeit
within a western framework: “Your Excellency [i.e. the new Governor of New
Zealand, the Honorable Arthur Gordon, GCMG] is aware that the relationship
between the two races inhabiting these islands has not been and is not in a
satisfactory state. That the natives are brave an intelligent is without doubt,
and they are extremely jealous of their rights and independence; and justly so
we think. That their rights have been fully considered is open to question. A
descendant of a proud and warlike race, your Excellency [of Scots ancestry]
will naturally be more able to understand the feelings of the Maoris, and by
your counsel and advice the difficulties that prevent a thorough and cordial
understanding between the two races will, we hope, be swept away and instead of
a legacy to our successors of bitter hatred and deadly feud, a feeling of
friendship, amity and a co-relation of interests shall join the two people as
one, obeying the same laws and respecting the constituted authorities of the
land. Such a result we think worthy of the ambition of the highest intellect.
That your Excellency may be spared to accomplish such an object is the earnest
desire of the Ashburton Caledonian Society”. [AshburtonGuard1881Mar24P2]
In his previous colonial appointments, Arthur Gordon had
consistently promoted public welfare and the humanitarian concern for the
oppressed yet as Governor of New Zealand his powers were weak. Meanwhile the
Hall government of the day was hell-bent on undermining the Parihaka settlement
in Taranaki and, within eight months of Stewart’s speech, while Governor Gordon
was out of the picture visiting Fiji, the Native Minister John Bryce led 1600
constables and troops to Parihaka where they destroyed much of the village,
detained the movement’s leaders without trial, dispersed the indigenous farmers
and committed barbarous acts against the womenfolk. It seems that Stewart’s
sentiments were a minority opinion at the time since “most colonists [given the
available information] approved of [the government’s actions]” [TeAraArthGordon]
[NzHistParihaka]
But what was Macbean Stewart like as a doctor?
Let’s start with the ominous signs …
There were rumours in 1880 that John MacLauchlin, a patient
of Dr. Macbean Stewart was unskillfully treated and died. MacLauchlin had an
accident with an adze which severed an artery in his leg. Stewart sewed him up
and the MacLauchlin was healing well until a leg cramp reopened the wound, and
– despite multiple interventions by Stewart – it never really came right
afterwards. Stewart recommended that the leg be amputated but the patient died
before MacLauchlin and his friends could agree on that course of action. The
rumours led to an inquest which resulted in the “complete exoneration” of Stewart.
[AshburtonGuard1880Oct27P2]
There was even more contention in 1884-1885. As Bennet
writes, a patient, Strickland, was admitted who “had a large irreducible hernia
and begged for radical cure. Stewart decide to operate using a new technique ‘as
described by Professor Annandale’ … claimed to be the first of its kind in New
Zealand”. The procedure was performed, but complications arose because the sac
of the hernia was attached to the bowel. There was hemorrhage, which Stewart
sewed up. Still, the patient steadily deteriorated and died three days later
with a greatly distended abdomen. Bennett provides a modern medical perspective
and reports “there is little doubt that that he died of peritonitis” (inflammation
of the lining of the inner wall of the abdomen arising for instance from
perforation of the intestinal tract) [Bennett77]
Dr. Nedwill, a colleague of Dr. Macbean Stewart, used the
failed operation to attack Stewart. First Dr. Nedwill protested to the hospital
staff on procedural grounds and, when they decided to take no action, he called
for a public enquiry and raised the issue with the press. A public enquiry was
held, and the hospital board stated in their findings that they had faith in
Dr. Stewart. Dr. Nedwill then charged Dr. Stewart with gross incompetence, asked
for a royal commission and published “a highly defamatory article” in the
Evening Post. He even approached the Legislative Council, though this effort
was stopped by Dr. Stewart who started a libel suit. Stewart won the suit
albeit was awarded just 1/- in damages. The libel suit attracted widespread
attention, and indeed the Lancet in London said “The operation was warranted
and properly carried out”. [Bennett77]
The following are newspaper articles that relate Dr. Nedwill’s
public pressure campaign after the public enquiry, and Dr. Stewart’s aggrieved
yet diplomatic response. [Star1885Feb12P4]
[LytteltonTim1885Feb26P5]
Finally, McFarland, an alcoholic suffering from delirium
tremens (alcohol withdrawal) in the residential care of Dr. Macbean Stewart
and supervised by Stewart’s son Harold at the time, used a pea-rifle to commit
suicide, and the patient’s widow brought a writ for £2000 (approximately
$600,000 in today’s money). Witness testimony was taken, and the judge
determined that Dr. Macbean Stewart and his family had provided a reasonable
level of supervision. The widow appealed the verdict but was unsuccessful. [HastingsStd1899Jun13P2]
[LytteltonTim1899Sep16P5]
[TimaruHer1900May05P3]
[AshburtonGuard1900May10P3]
… and Meander with his Medical Expert Witnessing …
As a lead surgeon at a prominent hospital, Dr. Macbean Stewart
was an expert witness in many trials. One that sheds light on the travails of
the day was a case involving bad meat, and specifically beef infected by
tuberculosis. The Christchurch Meat Company employed one inspector, Mr.
Charlton, who checked the beef for disease and branded passing carcasses. In
parallel another meat inspector, “the witness” did the rounds of meat shops to
determine if any unbranded meat was sold. In the High St outlet of the
Christchurch Meat Company he found an udder (a common target of bovine
tuberculosis) with signs of tuberculosis (i.e. characteristic calcareous
formations). It was Dr Stewart who made the expert determination that the
ominous gland in the udder was in fact due to tuberculosis, and that the meat
was quite unfit for human consumption. Reginald Foster, chief of the Stock
Department in Canterbury and known as “a good practical expert”, testified to
the same. [Star1899Oct05P4]
… But Finish with the Good News
Dr. Macbean Stewart was in practice for several decades in
New Zealand and there are many accounts of his efforts. An early one involved Dr.
Stewart’s skillful re-attachment of George Thomson’s ear. In this incident,
number-8 fencing wire is not the hero of the story. Thomson, riding a
frisky horse, was unseated presumably while attempting to traverse a wire
fence. The horse’s hoof almost severed Thomson’s ear, but Dr. Macbean Stewart’s
“timely and skillful treatment promises to result in the complete restoration
of the mutilated organ”:
 |
Acknowledgement: the National Library of New Zealand. |
Another anecdote illustrates Dr. Macbean Stewart’s
commitment to his patients, even to the exclusion of his community involvement.
Towards fundraising for a new Presbyterian church at the growing village of
Waterton south of Ashburton (now little more than a cemetery), Macbean Stewart
organised a small but efficient group of amateurs to travel by coach and
provide a concert on Guy Fawkes night at a school in the Waterton district. The
occasion was a great success with an audience of 150 and £9 raised. However Dr.
Stewart did not get a chance to see the fruit of his labours since one of his
community had developed a severe illness and he opted out of boarding the coach
and instead attended the patient. [AshburtonHer1878Nov06P2]
Dr. Macbean Stewart was supportive of Christchurch’s nascent
training school for probation nurses. “Dr. Stewart said that he regarded the
ceremony [to present examination certificates] as one of great interest,
because it marked the establishment of a school for training nurses, a thing
very important in the interests of the public. He might say that the percentage
of marks gained by the candidates was very high – higher than in most
examinations. As examiner in surgery and surgical nursing, he might say that
those who came under his notice in that particular branch, did very well except
in regard to two subjects, and he thought that their failure in these was not
duo to want of intelligence on their part so much as to the teaching; these
subjects were the treatment of sponges preparatory to use, and the preparation
of antiseptic dressings. He would suggest that next year a proper system and
regular syllabus should be drawn np. He thought that it was essential that
every probationer should undergo a certain course of training in invalid
cookery.” [LytteltonTim1892Aug25P6]
Of course data is always better than anecdotes and one
newspaper article implies that his success rates were as good as any (within some
margin of error). Specifically, in a dispute about the treatment of a patient
between Dr. Stewart’s colleagues Dr. Lomax-Smith and Dr. Murray-Aynsley, an
ally of Dr. Murray-Aynsley reports that “In the table of operations I have
furnished to the Board it will be seen that in 1892 Dr. Lomax-Smith did five
abdominal operations, of whom four died. During the same period Dr. Macbean
Stewart did twelve abdominal operations, of who two died. … In the last six months
… Dr. Nedwill performed eight abdominal operations of whom one died”. Thus we
have a failure rate of 12.5% (Nedwill), 16.7% (Stewart) and 80% (Lomax-Smith).
Sad to report, the outcome of the dispute was favorable Dr. Lomax-Smith rather
than Dr. Murray-Aynsley’s ally. [Star1896Apr23P4]
Dr. Macbean Stewart appears as a consistent advocate of
patients. In 1892 he gets into trouble with regards to wards 1 and 2. First he
recommends to the Hospital Board that the wards be used for nursing
accommodation since they “are quite unsuitable for their present purpose” and new
wards should be constructed instead. The issue of Wards 1 and 2 quickly blows
up since the W.D. Wood, chair of the board has heard someone said “That it was
certain death to put a patient in one of them.” and seeks to deflect blame. Dr.
Stewart dodges that accusation but does not back down that, in regards to wards
1 and 2, “owing to the age of the building and the porous nature of the
materials used in the construction, no amount of so-called disinfection, either
by fumigation or otherwise, can render them other than dangerous for the
reception of patients.” W.D. Wood counters with “[his] Committee deeply
regret[s] that any one of the honorary medical staff should so far forget his
duties as to circulate a report so detrimental to the interests of the
Hospital.” Later Dr. Stewart reports that patients convalescing in the affected
wards have excess cases of diphtheria, erysipelas (bacterial infection of the
skin) and pyemia (sepsis from a staphylococcal bacterial infection). The
exchange seemed to be fruitful in the sense that ultimately the hospital board
solicited the government to appoint a Royal Commission into the unsanitary
state of the two wards. [Star1892Oct27P4]
Macbean Stewart is similarly frank in his opinion of the
Rhodes Convalescent Home which, at the time was the subject on an enquiry to
make it a distinct institution: He “found it utterly impossible to get a horse
up the hill to the Home. Did not think that the ingenuity of man could select a
worse site for a Convalescent Home. It was not accessible, had no shelter, and
was cold.” [Star1888Jun14P3]
In one remarkable chapter, Dr. Macbean Stewart needs to
wrestle, in Bromley Hospital, Christchurch, with a case of the Bubonic plague! The
patient, Shields, believed he caught the plague in board a vessel that came
into Lyttlelton from Newcastle. Dr. Stewart and his team “took the greatest
possible care that there should be no danger of the disease spreading.” The patent
was kept in a “warm, comfortable, roomy and well-ventilated” tent outside the
hospital and moreover “When we went into the patients’ tent overalls were used.
Soap and water and disinfectants were kept in plentiful supplies, and were used
frequently…. The nurses devoted most of their energy towards keeping everything
clean, …”
Dr. Stewart is fulsome in his praise of the patient (“young,
strong and naturally healthy”) and his nurses (“Splendid work has been done by
Nurses Capper and Gifford. No persons could have been more devoted than they to
any patient … From the first he went on steadily and well, and there is no
doubt that that fact is due to the unremitting attention he received.”).
Dr. Stewart is also personally satisfied “I have gained a
great deal of information and experience in regard to the plague. … Of course
there was no one who had had any previous experience. We had to just treat the
symptoms as they arose.”
 |
Acknowledgement: the National Library of New Zealand. |
There are anti-vaccers in this age and so too they existed in
Dr. Macbean Stewart’s time. In a letter to the editor, he recounts a personal anecdote
“I have gone through an epidemic of small-pox, and it convinced me that
vaccination is one of the greatest boons ever conferred on humanity, and that
it has been the means of saving thousands of lives even in spite of adverse
surroundings, in many instances. The first two cases I attended in the epidemic
referred to was an object lesson I am not likely to forget. They were that of a
mother and child. The mother had been vaccinated in her youth, the boy never
was. The mother had a few pustules scattered over the body, but they interfered
so little with her normal condition that she was able to nurse her boy through,
all his illness, who, unprotected by vaccination, went steadily from bad to
worse, getting black and blacker, and ultimately died, a loathsome sight for days.
… During a lengthened period of some forty years’ experience of vaccination, I
never knew of any death or untoward event that could justly be laid at the door
of vaccination.” [LyttletonTim1903May23P11]
In another letter Dr. Macbean Stewart responds (frankly) to a
letter to the editor by someone with the pen-name Anti-Vaccination: “There is
very little in Anti-Vaccination’s letter to answer, as it consists principally
of certain wild and random statements by irresponsible persons, and utterly
opposed to common sense.” Stewart includes several data points in rebuttal,
including: “When Paris was besieged in 1873 by the Germans, the German army
consisted of about 100,000 men. Germany required of her soldiers compulsory
vaccination, while France did not. The French lost 23,000 by small-pox, while
the Germans lost under a 100.” [LytteltonTim1903Jun13P9]
Finally, Fulton writes that Macbean Stewart was “… good
natured, all excellent surgeon and a skillful physician” [Fulton22,
p179] and “a man of cheerful disposition, kind-hearted to a fault, a great
lover of his native heath, a good raconteur of humorous experience, and a
splendid conversationalist.” [Fulton22, p181]
Wrapping-Up
Although we come to Dr. Macbean Stewart through the apparent
quackery of his “New Cure”, that episode is more than counter-balanced by his
record of care for his patients, their needs, his nurses, and his community
(with particular attention to his fellow Scots). To be sure, some cases didn’t
work out as intended (MacLauchlin, Strickland, McFarland) but much of that can
be ascribed to the nature of doctoring and especially of colonial doctoring. To the modern eye, his (indirect) support of whaling and sealing as a young man was not his finest hour either.
Source material
[Fulton22] Dr. Robert Fulton, M.D.
“Medical Practice in the Early Days”, 1922
[Bennett77] Bennett,
F.O, "The Unfortunate Dr McBean Stewart of Christchurch", New Zealand
Medical Journal, page 186-189, volume 85, January-June 1977 (a copy was kindly
provided for private study by the National Library of New Zealand)
[CycNZCant03] The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [CanterburyProvincial District], Cyclopedia Company Limited, 1903
[Otley2000] Dr. M Otley, “Dr F. Mc B.
Stewart, one of the Advertisers on the QV ‘Second Sideface’ Issue”, New Zealand
Stamp Collector, 80, pp.114-116
[PapersPast] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/
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