CONFIRMATION NEEDED'

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 136, 5 December 1929, Page 11

CONFIRMATION NEEDED'

HEALTH DEPARTMENT'S

COMMENT

Medical officers of the Department of .Health, interviewed to-day, stated that the Rev. Mr. AVard should immediately disclose tho nature .of .his alleged cure to the medical superintendent of the Auckland Hospital and to prominent medical practitioners in Auckland in order that confirmatory investigation, under-skilled observance, may be carried out.

Tlie search for an infallible remedy for tuberculosis, it was said, has been pursued intensively, in all civilised countries for well over a hundred years; and there was no doubt that if preliminary trial in New Zealand supported the claims mado by the Rev. Mr. Ward, the Ministry of Health in England and the medical authorities of other countries would welcome any opportunity given tli em of trying such a remedy.

Questioned regarding tho prospects of tho "cure" being genuine, the medical officers replied that many treatments already in use can claim a good proportion of euros, particularly of early cases of consumption, but no infallible remedy has yet been discovered. An eminent English authority stated, in regard to tuberculosis: "The search foi- an infallible remedy is as alluring to T day as was ever tho quest for the philosopher's stone. The cure of tuberculosis is not beyond the powers of Nature, but art possesses no certain means, of attaining this desirable end. Every week some new preparation or nostrum is brought to tho notice of the medical profession, but on trial proves to be the fairy gold of medication, turning to ashes in the morning. Many of us can rceall the high hopes that wero raised by tho announcement of Koch's tuberculin and of Mannorek's scrum—hopes that at first appeared to bo fully justified by the successful treatment of a few cases."

By improvement in tho .social conditions of the people^ and of the food and environment of the poor, a steady reduction in the incidence of, and mortality from, tuberculosis has been brought about, but" hitherto, in the absence of an infallible specific, the treatment in general use has been one of supporting the resistance of the patient, and stimulating tho development of antibodies in the blood.

The matter of the alleged "cure" is so serious .that confirmatory investigations are necessarily required.