TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION

Hokitika Guardian, 10 May 1922, Page 4

TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION

VALUE OF SUITABLE EMPLOYMENT. AUCKLAND, May fi. Some reference to the latest treat, incut of tubercular disease was made by Dr 1L H. Malkgill, of the Department of Public Health, who recently returned from England, and the Continent, where lie gave the matter some attention. Dr. Makgill referred first of all to what is known as the Spahlinger treatmen in Switzerland, and he remarked that the results of this method, which is a scrum one, are not yet generally accepted by the medical profession. A considerable, time must elapse, he said, before any decision could be made either for or against the method. The I act that the system of this preparation was kept secret prevented co-operative investigation and so delayed progress. Dr Makgill said that the sunbath treatment was really not a- new method. It was really an extension of the open air treatment; and the two went hand in hand. Physiologists were still in doubt as to. the influence of sunlight on the metabolism of the body. “ One very difficult fact that has to be faced is estimating the.value of sunlight,” he remanked. “is that coal miners whose lives arc lived with a very small proportion of .their time in the sunlight arc unusually free from consumption. The absence of sunlight does not produce any weakened resistance to infection from tubercle in their case. However, whether it he the sunlight or the open air or merely the general natural hygenie conditions at the sunlight treatment sanatoria, there is no doubt that they are doing goad work, particularly in regard to cases of tubercle of hones and joints in children.” Dr Makgill believed that to provide suitable permanent work for those afflicted with this complaint was an eminently practical method of dealing with the problem. “Sanatorium treatment, is merely preliminary,” he said, “and it is of little use if the patient has to return to liis former surroundings, if lie has a wife and family to support, as the majority of the patients have. One may predict that the activities of the State in the futuroi will take the direction of establishing such work centres, leaving the preliminary sanatorium treatment to the local authorities who run the hospitals. The sanatorium is, of course a hospital, though for a special purpose. A NEW VACCINE. LONDON. March 31. To the current issue of the “Practitioner,” Dr'Nathan Rim contributes mi essay which indicates a remarkable development toward the cure of tuberculosis. Ho states that In' feels strongly, fiom his experience of treating over 10,000 cases of tuberculosis in hospitals and elsewhere during the last thirty yen:s, that we new have at our disposal a

scientific means by which we can secure some immunity to the bacillus, and certainly of preventing the extension of the disease in the human body when once introduced. Dr Raw is convinced that there is a decided antagonism in the human body between human and bovine infections, and that it is an indisputable fact that these two oignnisms cannot llou.ish in the body at the same time, lie has prepared a vaccine " hit'll is a bacillary emulsion of the baecilli and contains all the products of the bovine baccillus. It is non-toxic and a virulent, and produces no reaction, even in large doses. Da Raw’s original virulent cultures have been sob-cull ured on glycerine potato, and then transferred to glycerine agar every month for the last fifteen years in his laboratory, and the present growths represent the 181 th generation. The growths are still pioluse and true to type, but they are quite iioii-tuberciiligeiiic and completely no-pathogenie to animals. Every year since 1900 he has injected these baeih into animals with a view to testing their pathogenicity. Until the 94th generation of sub-cultures no changes in their virulence was noticed. After that time attenuation became pronounced, and in a series of animal innoculatimis in 1918 and I9J I they we c observed to he virulent. These experiments conclusively prove that virulent tubercle bacilli can be attenuated to such a degree as to lie nvirulent nn ( | lion-pathogenic to susceptible animals, and in his opinion we have in our hands a remedy agiust tuberculosis which ".J ho ol the greatest value not. only in the cure of the disease, but, what is ol still gioatcr importance, in its prevention h.v protecting the human body against attack.