MARTYRS TO SCIENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1929, Page 6

MARTYRS TO SCIENCE

DEATH FACED THAT OTHERS

MIGHT LIVE

FIGHTING DEADLY SCOURGES

WELLINGTON, February 20.

A brief review of the unhesitating sacrifices students and others , have made in the cause of science was given by Mr J. S. Elliott last night in his presidential address to .the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association.

“ The discovery by Manson and Boss oif the malarial parasites in mosquitoes has done much to make tropical countries habitable for the white races,” said Dr Elliott. “This and the researches on yellow fever insured the success of the Panama Canal. Mosquitoes also carry yellow fever. To prove this Dr Carroll at Havana nearly lost his life, and to remove any doubt in the investigation, Carroll’s companion, Dr Lazear, al! wed himself to be fatally bitten by a. mosquito that had flown (from a stricken p. L ient in hospital. His epitaph is this: 'With more courage than the devotion t.f a soldier, he risked and lost his life o show bow a fearful pestilence is communicated, and. how its ravages may be prevented.” The ■Government of the, United States showed its recognition of his heroic services and sacrifice' by ; granting his wife and two children an allowance of £1 a week. Sir Ronald Ross, already referred to as the discoverer of the- malarial pjirasite in the mosquito, is now past work and recently offered for sale in London his journals and manuscript so that be may have the wherewithal to spend his latter davs in comfort.

' “Noguchi, the brilliant Japanese bacteriologist and martyr, travelled to Guayaquil in Ecuador on a hunting expedition, not for big game, as it has been said, but for the smallest of small game, and discovered the tiny organism that is responsible 'for yellow fever. He grew cultures of this organism, and, daring the wrath of the ,anti-vivi-sectionists, by injecting the virus into guinea, pigs communicated yellow fever to these animals, and by injecting horses produced a serum. SELF-INJECTED PLAGUE.

“ In 1894 the plague bacillus was discovered and this disease is carried by fleas lurking in the coats of rats. Haffkine injected himself with the virus from plague bacilli, which he "knew would slay as surely as a bullet from a gun, so that lie might test on himsel'f the efficiency of his curative vaccine. It is a matter of history that in the fourteenth century the plague destroyed nearly half the population of Great Britain, but that country is now protected by modern science and sanitation and its system of quarantine. “In Uganda, Dr Castellani discovered the parasite which causes the deadly African scourge oif sleeping sickness. but did hot discover how it was carried, but Sambon, sitting in his study in London, reviewing all the available facts, was able accurately to incriminate the deadly tsetse fly. With equal brillaince Sambon showed that the body louse is the carrier of typhus fever. “ Sir Leonard Rogers has brought hope even to the leper and all except advanced cases are cured with a solution of chaulmoogra oil. “ Contaminated water infected with the comma bacillus causes cholera', of which disease half a million people throughout the world perished in the year 1892. “ Inoculation against cholera and also against typhoid has saved many thousands of lives. Malta fever was banished from Gibraltar and other places by the simple expedient of removing all the goats, who are carriers of this disease. CANCER AND DIABETES.

“ When the mystery of cancer is more clearly revealed we shall he on the way to a fuller knowledge oif the origin of life itself. The nature of goitre is being discovered, diphtheria antitoxin is triumphant, syphillis is being radically cured, and owing to Banting’s' discovery of insulin, patients in diabetic coma are raised almost from the dead. In ancient times moro soldiers by Ifar died of disease and wounds than were killed in action. In the last Great War miracles were wrought in surgery and modern investigation and treatment prevented to a great extent such scourges as malaria, dysentery, typhoid, tetanus and trench fever. The way of progress in medical science is marked by the whitened bones of her martyrs, but is it any exaggeration to say that it is a> romance of heroism and of high endeavour r “It is for the relief oif the human race that our profession exists, and not only to light disease hut with sympathy to understand the men, women and children who seek our knowledge and experience. How far we succeed is not for us to say, and we dare not look for approval to those gifted amateuis who by intuition know more than by years oif toil and study, or to featherbrains self-consciously deep in all the pseudosciences.

“ Tho gradual conquest of disease by the energy and sacrifice of single-mind-ed men, Harvey’s great discovery, .Tenner’s fight against smallpox, Pasteur and Lister’s fight against hospital fever, Simpson’s banishment of pain, the gradual conquest'of malaria, yellow ifever, and other scourges of mankind, the great hospital system of the piesent day, perhaps the choicest flower of our civilisation, point to a future that is bright with promise and radiant with hope,”