Maurice King’s beautiful medical book saved lives in Botswana | Letter

I read with interest Maurice King’s obituary (Other Lives, November 15). He was a great man. He wrote a great book entitled Medical Care in Developing Countries, which was published in 1966. I went to Botswana in 1968, at the age of 25, and took the book with me because the diseases there were completely different – ​​mainly infections, tuberculosis, bilharzia and snakebites. It was invaluable in a two-doctor hospital in Lobatse and saved a few lives.

The other book I took with me was Farquharson’s Textbook of Operative General Surgery, which was like a prescription book, that is, cut along the dotted line. You just had to know your anatomy. I did my first tracheostomy reading from the book, having it done by a nurse. Wonderful times.

PS, I became a surgeon.
Christine Evans
Llanarmon-yn-Ial, Denbighshire