HIGH HOPES HELD FOR THE CURE OF LEPROSY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 54, 9 June 1950, Page 5

HIGH HOPES HELD FOR THE CURE OF LEPROSY

What might prove to be the answer to the disease of leprosy, the new sulphone drugs—half-brothers to the famous sulphur drugs—was mentioned by the Reverend M. H. Feist, New Zealand secretary of the world wide interdenominational Mission to Lepers in an address at Whakatane this week. Visiting the district on what he called “an instructional and inspirational” tour Mr Feist has now left the district to continue his tour through the western section of the Bay of Plenty. For the past 20 years leprosy has been treated with derivatives of chaulmoogra oil, and this system has proved fairly successful, Mr Feist said. Lately much more potent drugs such as sulphetrone, diasone and promin had been discovered and were raising high hopes among doctors. Already they had shewn their ability to arrest the disease in quite advanced cases to which the older form of therapy could hold out no hope.

The difficulty was that the cost of treating one leper for a year with the new drugs was about £2O. However, it was hoped to bring this sum down to £3. Mr Feist said that the Mission to Lepers owned more than 50 hospitals in various parts of the world in which it hoped to make the change over to the new form of treatment if it is proved successful. Some of the difficulties in providing comforts were outlined by Mr Fc-ist, who said that goods like knitted woollens were particularly difficult because of the high cost of transportation and the heavy duty often imposed on the articles when they reached their destination. An almost 100 per cent import duty on knitted articles has been imposed by the Indian Government. • In the stations covered by the Mission there are more than 18,000 patients and 1400 healthy children whose parents are sufferers. On Monday Mr Feist addressed a meeting at Edgecumbe.