DEFECTIVE DIAGNOSIS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 16, 3 February 1937, Page 5

DEFECTIVE DIAGNOSIS

-Press Association.)

Doctor's Claim in Many Cases INFANTILE PARALYSIS

(fiy TelesraDh-

V CHRISTCHURCH, Last xngux. , "It is open to a good deal of doubtj whether these cases whieh have been1 positive really are positive when there tis no actual paralysis present," eaid 'Dr. A. D. Nelson, medical Buperintenxtent of the Christchurch Publie Hospital, to-night when he suggested that. .many of the cases in hospitals through'jout the South Island as infantile paraly-. l«is were not really cases of that disease. "We have four cases in hospital here who have been given out to the world as positive cases. I doubt if they are," he said. ''Some people say they can diagnose a case deflnitely in its1 preIparalytic stage. I am quite honest when! II say I cannot, I dont think a casei •■can be certainly dxagnosed in that stage. 'and I think every doctor who is honest ■will tell you the same. '•'When a suspected case is admittedj We take some of the cerebral fluid andi make a cell couat. If there is a vefy jbig increase in the count we becomoj i suspicious,^ but it is still open to muchl doubt untxl the actual paralysis de-' velops. In the pre-paralytic stage A case can be either very serious or nothing at all. It is open to question When ' the case is described as positive in |the absence of paralysis, ' ' he concluded. This statement by Dr. Nelson Was conflrmed later by Dr. X F. Landreth ,who was appoxnted in the early stages of the epidemic as offlcial specialist in the disease for Canterbury. "The point about the whole thing is that there is some doubt," he said. "The public health authorities have taken it that all people with high cell counts are positive cases, but it nxust- be admitted that there is quite a degree of ■loubt about it all the same."