NEW CURE FOR CONSUMPTION.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 79, 16 May 1902, Page 5

NEW CURE FOR CONSUMPTION.

The latest cure for consumption is described in the Daily Mail. The tubercular bacilli are being poisoned in the lungs by an ingenious injection of a solution of formic aldehyde, and in many cases already, it is stated absolute cures have been effected. Patients who were once regarded as consrnptives of the most hopeless class have, by fol lowing the treatment, been accepted by life insurance companies as “ first-class lives.” The inventor of the new treatment is Dr Robert Maguire, physician to the Brompton Hospital. Some time ago Dr Maguire determined to j attack the bacilli in a new way. The hitherto used had to be so as not to injure the stomach, where they underwent such further dilution as to be practically worthless. So with hypodermic injection, while pricking the lungs was risky, and not to be too often repeated. Mr Maguire thereupon decided on injection into the veins, and after lengthy and anxious research he decided on formic aldehyde as the injection. The hole in the punctured vein near the elbow is so small that it voluntarily heals up without treatment after each operation. A solution of 1 in 170,000 of formic aldehyde is fatal to the tubercular bacilli. If then such a solution can be introduced into the blood vessels and the lungs sluiced with it the cure is apparently accomplished. But would the heart stand the poison ? It was found that an original solution of 1 in 2000, which was reduced by assimilation to 1 in 100,000 on reaching tl e right ventricle, could be freely employed, while solutions of 1 in 1000 and 1 in 500 have been used with perfect safety. The lungs ar e impregnated for the space of about 25 heart beats, and in the great majority of experiments the effect has been pretty much what was expected. The solution is a f-ure germicide, and the bacilli have been exterminated. Some time ago a youngman, a bank clerk, came for Doctor Maguire’s treatment. He was in one of the last stages of consumption. In less than two months from timt date there was not a trace of consumption about him, and, most convincing test of all, he was accepted by an insurance office as a first-class life.