A brilliant surgeon and a paranoid alcoholic.

Dr John Rutherford Ryley was the first doctor in Australasia to try the new antiseptic surgery technique that Joseph Lister was pioneering in Scotland.  Until the 1860s the process of infection was not understood and surgeons did not wash their hands or instruments between operations and sometimes were coats covered with blood and pus.  Nearly half of all patients undergoing major surgery died of post-operative infections which were thought to be caused by 'bad air'.

Dr Lister's use of carbolic acid to decrease the risk of infection during surgery was not initially widely accepted but Ryley, having been a pupil of Lister's in Scotland, was keen to try it.  He had been appointed surgeon-superintendent of Hokitika Hospital in mid 1865 and began trying Lister's methods in January 1868.  The first three major cases all survived, which was unusual, and this was a huge step forward, especially for the patients!

Despite his surgical success, Ryley was an unpopular doctor with some locals saying that he was 'devoid of humanity'.  Ryley was involved in on-going disputes with the hospital committee and caused scandal within the community when he had an adulterous affair.

When Ryley left Hokitika for Auckland with his wife and son in early 1870 his mental health was deteriorating.  His behaviour was so unstable and violent that he was committed to the Auckland Asylum in March.  After his release he left for Fiji, leaving Charlotte behind but taking the couple's five year old son.   Ryley left Fiji in 1873 travelling with his recently widowed lover to Australia where he held various appointments.  Charlotte obtained a divorce from Ryley in 1879 on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. 

Ryley died of a self administered drug overdose in Sydney in March 1884 when he was forty-four years of age.  His son was training as a doctor and signed an affidavit saying that his mother had died in 1877.  Charlotte was in fact alive and well and living in Melbourne, where she eventually died in 1921.  She died believing that her son George was dead but was this true? 

CAN YOU ADD ANYTHING TO THIS STORY?

• Did the son (William Rutherford Ryley, born in June 1861 at 30 Scotia Street, Glasgow) from his first marriage in Scotland survive?
• What happened to George Sale Ryley, who was born in Hokitika in 1865?
• Can you add any information about John Rutherford Ryley's medical career?
• Do any photos of Dr Ryley survive?

If you can answer any of these questions are have any more information that you think might be useful please contact our Researcher on curator@shantytown.co.nz or (03) 762 6634.  We'd love to hear about it!

South Spit Hospital, Hokitika, c. 1866.  West Coast Historical Museum.

Carbolic Sprayer