ABSTRACT
At eight pm on Wednesday, November 21, 1928, a medical bulletin was issued from Buckingham Palace: ‘His Majesty the King is suffering from a cold with some fever and is remaining in bed’. Wilfred Trotter, who at that time was surgeon to the King and who succeeded Rigby as Serjeant Surgeon in 1932, was a remarkable man. Frail looking, quiet, soft-spoken, and stooping as a result of a childhood disease of the spine, he was nevertheless a magnificent surgeon who made great contributions to the intricate problem of cancer of the larynx and pharynx. The last bulletin, issued on the evening radio news broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, was composed by Dawson on the back of a menu card at Sandringham Palace. The words were to become famous: ‘The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close’.
