Back in October of 1962 my brother was hurt while playing football. He had some internal bleeding. The doctors operated on him and during the surgery, his spleen was removed. I do not remember if his spleen had been damaged. However, I do remember my father telling me that the doctor said that the spleen was non essential.
In August of 1963, my brother was working at a summer camp and contracted spinal meningitis. He was the only person at the camp that did. He was dead within 48 hours and the doctors were unsure why that happened.
About ten years later we learned that he very well may have lived if he had his spleen
Very true. Turns out splenectomy patients have particular difficulties with so called “encapsulated bacteria” which generally means pneumococcus, hemophilus, and N. Meningitis. The last of these is the frequent cause of fatal meningitis, although it’s possible for all three to do it.
Ways to save damaged spleens just didn’t exist in 1962 - that came much later like the 80’s or so. And even there, they don’t always work - sometimes the spleen just has to come out despite all best efforts to maintain it. I think the comfort to be found, if any, is that he got state of the art care for his time, things just hadn’t evolved where they needed to be in 1962.