LEPROSY CURES IN PACIFIC

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2622, 21 August 1923, Page 1

LEPROSY CURES IN PACIFIC

USE OF CHAULMOOGRA OIL,

The Rev. J. Eddy, who relinquished ministerial work in Australia about ten years ago in order to become secretary to the mission to the lepers here (writes a Sydney correspondent to the “Evening Post”) has returned from a visit to India and other parts of the mission held. He states that remarkable results have been obtained in the treatment of leprosy by chaulmoogra oil. Nobody, says Mr Eddy, thinks of leprosy without remembering Father Damien, the hero of Molokai, and it was particularly gratifying to be able to state that from one institution alone in Hawaii, near to where that devoted priest laboured and laid down his life, about 120 lepers had been released on parole during the past three years, free, as far as science could discover, from the terrible disease.

In explaining the method of treatment, Mr Eddy said that medical science was working wonders. Its first work was segregation then treatment, due regard being paid to diet and hygiene. There was a tree which was indigenous to India, and which yielded berries, the oil extracted therefrom being known as chaulmoogra. The virtue of the oil in the treatment of lepers had been known for generations, but its usefulness had been limited because of its horrible taste and its disturbing effect upon the digestive system. Sir Leonard Rogers, who was the honorary physician of the mission in Calcutta, conceived the idea of extracting the active principle from that oil, and injecting it directly into the blood, and his treatment had been so successful that the Government of India tested it all over the country, and it was reported after twelve months that 72 per cent, of the cases treated were making satisfactory progress. That mode of treatment had been carried still further by American specialists, and it was estimated that in 70 per cent, of the eases treated the disease could now be arrested and 25 per cent, virtually freed from the disease—that is, the patient was declared “bacteriologically negative.” In the latter case they could be safely discharged as they were no longer a source of danger to others. Mr Eddy stated that leprosy and consumption belonged to the same family of diseases, and what chaulmoogra oil was to leprosy, cod liver oil was to consumption. He says that Sir Leonard Rogers was at present in London, and he was hopeful, along the same line of research, to perfect a remedy for tuberculosis, and has already reported satisfactory progress.