WAR ON RHEUMATISM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 47, 24 January 1938, Page 6

WAR ON RHEUMATISM.

Sufferers from rheumatism, and they number thousands , among the white races alone, will learn with considerable interest that intensive research into this malady is promised by a movement which lias among its chief supporters no less an authority than Lord Horder, the King’s Physician. Of recent years much has been heard of the Empire campaign against cancer; more lately there was announced a movement for research into the causes and remedies for the common cold. Yet rheumatism, which for centuries has caused untold suffering, being the term popularly used for painful affections of the muscles or joints, and embracing several distinct conditions, among them arthritis, seems to have received less united attention than it warrants.. An Empire Rheumatism Council has now been set up for what Lord Horder describes as “war against rheumatism on a wide front.’ The British Ministry of Health, realising the importance of the objective, is giving a good measure of support and lias suggested that approved societies with money available might well spend it on furthering the work. Medical members of the House of Commons have formed themselves into a group to aid the Council’s aims, and they will be strengthened by the inclusion of lay members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Two research fellowships been made possible by a gift of <£13,000 by a private citizen,; Mr Alexander Maclean, and other donations totalling £32,000 have been received or promised. The research fellowships will deal .with two urgent problems in relation to the causative factors of rheumatic disease. According to Lord Horder, the aim is to arrive as quickly as possible at a standardised system of treatment apolicable to the great majority of sufferers from" the various forms of rheumatic disease and capable of being used on a national scale. Such a system would be subject to. modification from time to time as more information was gathered from clinical experience. There is much for sufferers to hope for in this new campaign.