TREATMENT OF DISEASE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4824, 27 April 1925, Page 4

TREATMENT OF DISEASE

HAS SI BGEin HAD ITS DAY I ' FOLLIES OF CIVILISATION. “From prehistoric times until rather- less than half a century ago surgery was a desperate remedy for desperate diseases,’’ writes Dr, C. WSaleeby in tile “Outlook.” “Not even the blessed introduction of anaesthesia in the ’forties had altered that fact, which depended not. upon the immediate pain and fear and shock, but upon the extreme probability of subsequent inflammation and blood poisoning.

“Then came Pasteur, the French chemist, with his epoch-making discoveries in bacteriology, and Lister, the English surgeon, who applied them, in Glasgow, in a ward lately destroyed by vandalism, to the operation for compound fractures, with immediate and,glorious success. Hence antiseptic and aseptic surgery; immunity for the patient, impunity for the surgeon ; the brain and the abdomen, and even the heart, became amenable to the knife, which could be used for merrily aesthetic purposes, for diagnosis, or for sheer fun.

“To decry modern surgery, especially after the first European war in which it was really applied as it should be, would be folly. A dozen years ago I wrote a book in its honour, and a few lines frolm. Lord Lister are among my most treasured possessions, but there is much more to say to-day by way of warning and prediction.

"Our minds being what they are, most of us can grasp a netf half-truth only by dropping that half which, perchance, we already possess. Thu? progress, as Buffon said, is in spirals, instead of straight ahead ad astra. ed the attention of a large proportion velious that it very naturally absorbed the attention of a. large proportion of brilliant youngsters in the past generation. It to the mechanical engineering aptitude which many men possess. It is rapid, dramatic, and gives quick returns.

“Yet, fully recognising the science involved in anaesthesia, in antiseptis and asepsis, and in anatomy, we must also recognise that by far the greater part of modern surgery is, if not unscientific, dependent for its province upon the deplorable failure of isciejnee, and I will cite instances to show that the •spectacular success of surgery actually caused the medical profession to forget some vital truths of observation and practice which it already knew and the rediscovery of which-is the most hopeful and-strik-ing part of contemporary medical progress. ...

“AH the recent statistics suggest that appendicitis, like cancer of the alimentary canal, is a disease of civilisation, dependent upon the absurd follies of our modern dietary and sedentary livps. When we learn what these follies cost there will be an end of appendicitis and. its surgery. Similar observations apply to the surgery of the gall-bladder and gall-stones. Freni a great surgeon who has kindly been treating my broken leg and knee during recent weeks I loam that the Rontgen rays are now banishing surgery from the treatment of enlarged prostate—and countless men must he’ grateful therefor hereafter.

“There are two excellent reasons already why we may confidently predict the passing of thbi surgery of cancer. The first is the blessed advent of the Rontgen rays (and radium). A better reason for the passing of surgery in cancer ere long its to ber found in cur elucidation, one by one, of its causes —its many causes, not. 1U ‘cause,’ as we stupidly say—and it-> consequent prevention.

‘ ‘Chronic irritation,’ said Virchow, generations ago, and ho was right. To-day the cotton manufacturersthanks to a recent legal decision, arc thinking how to avoid the chronic irritation of a revolving spindle plus crude oil, and there will be so much less cancer amongst, the operatives. That is only one of a host of instances. The dentists can suggest others, and the enemies of constipation, and so on. Am I too sanguine in assuming that, having gained such vital knowledge, we shall apply it? I hope not.

“The special hospitals for women are full of the victims of hasty, dirty, or otherwise incompetent midwifery. An. easily preventable venereal disease accounts for probably one-half of all cases in which abdominal surgery is required in women. We can and we will make our midwifery worthy of a civilised country—the country of Lister and Nightingale—and we are already steadily conquering the venereal diseases. There should be very little need for operative gynecology left in progressive civilised countries in another decade or two.

“Space fails. I had meant to discuss ‘tonsils and adenoids,’ and of ask how much surgery of the ear will be left when we properly care. for measles and whooping-cough. But tile foregoing should suffice. And if the ardent youngster wants a. specialism worthy of any man’s powers he will find in biochemistry that whiea is destined some day to recreate man - kind and leave all fabled Edens nowhere,” concludes Dr. Saleeby.