WAR ON DISEASE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4826, 25 March 1925, Page 4

WAR ON DISEASE.

SURVEY OF YEAR’S WORK. BRITISH MEDICAL RESEARCH. The annual report of the British Medical Research Council, issued recently, gives an interesting and encouraging survey of the progress of medical research, not only during the year ended September 30, .1924', but during the past five years. The report, while pointing to some of the chief successes of research work in various medical spheres, disclaims distinctly any suggestion that the results of immediate and obvious value which have emerged during the' quinquennium indicate an ultimate harvest in practical results. This is a modest but just reservation. The one thing that all engaged in medical research. have learned above ctners during the multifarious scientific activities of this century is the impossibility of predicting whether investigations along a particular line will fulfil their promise in a particular direction.

As against this may be set the fact that all new knowledge is of value, tthough the place in which that villus is most direct may not be found until some time afterwards. On this point the Marquess Curzon, Lord President of the Council, remarks: “The work of the Medical Research Council will be rightly judged during any given period, not by reference to particular performances of utility, but by the degree to which their resources and influence have been used, so as to bring an increasing number of the ablest men into the service of the medical sciences and to set them free to enlarge knowledge. If this be done the community is well served, for it gains in unmeasured ways from an increase in the number of those leading an active intellectual life of research and higher .teaching, while it is this which opens the only secure path towards rapid gains of utilitarian ■object's.”

The introduction and use of insulin form the outstanding achievement-of recent scientific medicine. The chemical composition of insulin is still unknown, though its virtue as a cure for diabetes is profound. Its discovery in the laboratories of Toronto was a striking new departure made by modern workers who were standing on a platform which had been eree.ted by half a century of experimental work in the physiological laboratories of the world. So far from this detracting from the value of the discovery, it is a proof of its solidity. •

On this sugject the Council states '■ “Insulin is a cure for diabetes in.the same sense as that in which food is a cure for hunger, .and already we owe to it an immense diminution in the suffering of innumerable children and adults in all countries. Dealing with the treatment of diabetes with ■ insulin, the report states that the combined output of insuliii of the British firms exceeds an average of a million units a week,- and this supply is not only sufficient to meet all the home demand, but permits’ the export of large quantities to other parts of the Empire and to foreign countries. Concurrently with increase m the scale of production, and with impromevent in methods as the result of research and of experience, t.ne niannfacfurens were able to make five successive reductions in price within a year. The present price: effective siii’ce July last, is little more tha". a tenth of that originally found necessary, and it is considerably lower than the corresponding price in America.”

The Council has an interesting comment, to make on the pathology of common disease. It states : “In one .chief , field the pathologist is opposed

by a task which hats long delayed the improvement of knowledge, namely, the solution of the problem of the invisible ‘viruses’ which we have good ground to believe arc the causation factors of many of our commonest diseases, such as measles, whoopingcough, mumps, infantile paralysis, provement in methods as the result ■commonest cold,’ influenza, and many others. And to these may be added animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, to name only one, which inflict immense losses. All over the world men are trying to find means for seeing; manipulating, and controlling these organisms, of whose existence we have at present only indirect proof. . . . Any advance

might lead at once to the capture of a series of new positions and bring untold benefit to medicine and the people. The Council has given every effort towards the support of work in this direction, and towards bringing into it men variously equipped for the difficult technical studies required.” The National Institute of Medical Research is conducted by the Medical Research Council, and a third of the Parliamentary grant-in-aid to the Council is expended here upon practical research work. The site acquired at Mill Hill for the purpose of field laboratories associated with the Institute has been developed during the year, and the work' in active progress at the Institute is summarised in the report.

Considerable space is devoted in the report to the experiments and researches concerning tuberculosis. Hi regard to these it is stated : “Experiments had been undertaken to determine whether tubercle bacilli in the skin or in other tuberculous tissues were killed or became modified in virulence by exposure to light rays from the Finsen-Reyn lamp. Inquiry has also been made into the actions of various oiks or tubercle bacilli. It was observed during an invsetigation of naphthalene emulsion (of which one oi the ingriedients is olive oil) that when cultures of tubercle ba'cillus were suspended and, incubated in oil the bacilli were gradually killed. Of great interest was the observation that olive oil that had been exposed to sunlight until bleached killed tubercle bacilli more speedily than ol’ve oil that had not been so exposed. The experiments were being continued in collaboration with an expert in oils to ascertain how the in germicidal action of various oils could be correlated with differences in their physical or chemical constitution,” . investigations have been carried out respecting the effects'of exposing the skin of man and of animals to ultra-violet light nad other forms of radiant' energy. "The rays from a carbon arc or a mercury vapour lamp, as well as certain heat rays, were found to raise the bactericidal effi-

ciency of the subject’s blood, this l effect being referable to improved functions of the leucocytes. A similar improvement in the blood w.ap found to occur after exposure to the Alpine sun in winter. It was suggested that this enhanced power of the blood to kill microbes played an important part in the beneficial action of sunlight upon tuberculosis and other infections. lii conformity with clinical experience it had been found by experiment that irradiation for purposes of treatment must be carefully graded, since excessive exposures cause a deterioration of the blood no les(.s striking than the improvement obtained with smaller doses.”