Review of the Autobiography of Dr A Cecil Cyrus – ‘A Dream Come True’

by Sir Henry Fraser

Dr Cyrus is a Vincentian and Caribbean legend. I can give no better explanation of Cecil than to quote the introduction from my citation for his award by the Caribbean Health Research Council, on April 24, 2009: “Friends, it is not often that mere mortals meet men who are legends in their own lifetime, but tonight, those assembled here are in the company of a man of medicine who can only be described as “the legendary Cecil Cyrus.” In fact, Dr Arthur Cecil Cyrus, BSc, MB, ChB, BAO, FRCS (England), FRCS (Edinburgh), DO (London), DORCOG, has been a legend in St Vincent since his schooldays; in Belfast as a medical student; and in the Caribbean for more than 40 years.”{{more}}

The book in my hands is the long awaited autobiography of an amazing life. Dr Cyrus was born in humble circumstances in the countryside in St. Vincent, but amazing focus and a brilliant mind led, through dedication and scholarships, to his medical and surgical training in Belfast. He spent 13 years as the lone surgical specialist at the Colonial Hospital, St Vincent and then 30 years at his own private Botanic Hospital. He was known to his colleagues across the Caribbean as “The Isolated Surgeon of St Vincent.”

His skill and ingenuity in curing the incurable and saving the unsalvageable were nothing short of miraculous, and in his words, gifts of God. Dr Cyrus, surgeon extraordinaire, shared his medical experience and surgical skills with colleagues in over 40 lectures and scientific papers, in Britain and the Caribbean, between 1975 and 1997. Furthermore, his surgical achievements have been combined with a 40-year collection of pathological specimens, with the approval of his grateful patients, in his highly praised magnum opus “A Clinical and Pathological Atlas: The Records of a Surgeon in St Vincent.”

Sadly, my attempts to secure his amazing Medical Museum for the UWI failed because of the blanket of despair that accompanied the global and Barbadian recession in 2008.

Dr Cyrus’ autobiography is a classic, full of wisdom, entertaining anecdotes and inspiring philosophy. Chapter titles include: Home remedies, The saddest of days, At the tailor shop, Nicknames, My internship, The FRCS, and The inconceivable – a white wife (his wonderful wife Kathryn, who he says is an angel for putting up with him!) It is a valuable contribution to the biographical literature and historiography of the Caribbean. Dr Cyrus is a living legend. The book can be purchased by contacting Dr or Mrs Cyrus at cyrusclinic@vincysurf. com, from Amazon, or at the Caribbean Conference of Surgeons in Barbados (June 11 – 13). The cost is EC$90. (Originally published in the Barbados Advocate).

(Professor Fraser is past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine. Website: profhenry fraser.com)