MANY MENTAL CURES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5183, 26 September 1927, Page 3

MANY MENTAL CURES.

DOCTOR’S SPLENDID WORKSOME STRIKING RECOVERIES. Two cases in which insanity was cured by the extraction of had teeth were quoted by Dr. "William Hunter, consulting physician to the London Fevei Hospital, in an address before the mental diseases section of the Butisii Medical Association in Edinbu<gn recently. * The cures were recorded by Dr. Cotton, director of the New Jersey State Hospital, New York. One concerned a woman who was in the chronic ward of an institution for two years, and, within two months of having bad teeth extracted, she completely recoovered, and has remarried. A similar cure was effected on a young girl who, on admission to an institution, was violent and destructive in her behaviour. Bad t.eeth wtere extracted after a month, and though she was a serious mental case she immediately recovered. The removal of infection in all cases of mental disorder is a matter of urgency, declared Dr. Hunter, who said that, through a new campaign on the subject, they hoped to see each mental hospital as well equipped for surgical work as for medical and nursing care. They should have the services of surgepnsi, dentists, end good throat, nose, and ear specialists for the removal of infection. FOURTEEN HUNDRED CASES. Dr. Hunter added that, with the results he obtained, Dr. Cotton began from 1918 onwards an attack on the whole field of the sepsisi represented by 1400 cases, and by doing so he doubled the number of his discharges and reduced the average stay ip hospital from ten months to three months. Sir Berkley Moynihan, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said that the latest contribution to direct research into the relationship of aberrant mental states to organic diseases was the most significant of all in the last generation. He described the results of operations on persons who had for many years been neurotics, with attendant pain, querulousness, and bad temper, and by slight operations had been restored to full health. One doctor on whom he had operated, and who ahd been declared to be insane, had enjoyed perfect mental health, and had told him that the operation was like having a mental cloud lifted from his brain. A. case was cited of a postman who, by an operation to the ear, was cured of a severe mental disorder which had caused him to forget the names of streets. He was unable to deliver letters, and was obliged to take them home, as he even forgot where the post office was. OTHER REMARKABLE CURES. Cases were quoted of two other men who had been cured by small operations. One had a craving desire to fire off rockets from the top of Edinburgh Castle, and the other had a passion for lighting fires in every room ih pis house. Great importance was laid on the possibility of a simple physical cure of cases of mental agi--1 tation such as not being able to decide upon which (rain to catch and general lack of ability to come to a decision.

It was stated that recent researches, into the subject have been so successful that a campaign will be launched, and it is possible that public authorities controlling mental hospitals will be asked to supply every provision for surgical work—a step which it is claimed would double patients’ chances of recovery.