THE THOMAS SPLINT

  In 1744, two small boys were washed up on a beach in Anglesey following a shipwreck. One of them sadly died a few days later but the other was adopted by a local doctor. The boy, was named Evan Thomas and  followed in his adopted father's medical footsteps specialising in bone-settings. He developed techniques never before seen in the UK.

 It was however, his great-grandson, Hugh Owen Thomas, (1834-1891) who became known as the “father of modern orthopaedics”. Among a myriad of medical innovation, he is best known for the invention of the “Thomas Splint”. In his lifetime the split was used for the treatment of fractures but it was his  nephew Robert Jones (1857-1933) who demonstrated the importance and life-saving potential of the Thomas splint amid the chaos of World War 1.

 Originally from Rhyl in north Wales, Robert Jones specialised in military surgery. As the war relentlessly ground on, Jones became aware of the needless deaths arising from injuries from compound fractures of the femur. Trauma to the femur,the largest bone in the human body, caused severe shock and blood loss from the two broken ends of the bone moving and grating together. Statistics from France in 1916 suggest that the mortality rate from this type of injury was , in fact up to 80%. The majority of these servicemen who died, up to 50% died in transit, or at casualty clearing stations before they ever reached a field hospital.

 Believing in his uncle's invention, Robert Jones set out on an ambitious campaign to educate all medical staff in the use and application of the Thomas splint. This together with advances in military surgery brought the chance of dying down from 80% to about 20%. It is impossible to say how many lives were saved by Hugh Owen Thomas's invention and by his nephews introduction of the splint to the army. However, it is clear that it transformed the treatment of a common injury. It was also used with great effect in WW2 and a version of it is still in use today. The darkness of WW1 should not be forgotten, but neither should be the shards of light from within.

    Thanks go to theWelsh History monthly for the contents of this article.