W.E.A. LECTURES

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6545, 29 February 1928, Page 8

W.E.A. LECTURES

Dr. Cyril King Continues Series Last evening 'Dr. qyril King, 8.5. C.. F.R.C.S., continued liis series of W.E.A. addresses on the prevention and transmission of disease. Dr King dealt mainly with the course taken in the infection of the human body by disease In his next lecture Dr King will deal with the origin and prevalence of hydatids in New Zealand and Australia and with the courses of infectious fevers. In opening his address, Dr King j stated that he would commence by endeavouring to explain the manner in which germs poisoned the human system. The only manner by which this could be done at all clearly, said the speaker, was by graphic methods. Dr King then proceeded to explain himself by means of blackboard draw* ings. It must be realised, ho said, that each of the countless cells of which the human body was made up, was composed of two separate parts. The subservient portion of the coll which nourished the main portion of the cell, was composed of a number of chemical substances which were able to combine with a number of chemical substances in the food supply. All the food contained the vital substances known as proteins which were broken up in the process of digestion. These food products passing into the colls combined with chemical products inside the subservient part. This process built up the cell and, reproduced a thousandfold through all the cells, carried on the process of living. In tho process of infecting a cell, the germs produced toxins which if they could not find an appropriate combination with other elements, set up poisoning. If one stimulated a living tissue the response to the stimulation was often in excess of tne stimulus provided. The lecturer proceeded to illustrate this fact- by a number of examples. This law, ho stated, was true of infection. First the cell was infected. If there was | sufficient toxin produced the cell was I killed but if the cell re-acted sufficiently to produce anti-toxins which ! counteracted the toxins no infection I took place. In the course of time, the body produced anti-toxins which were handed from generation to generation and contributed towards what was known as hereditary immunity. In the early stages of life, this process of natural immunity had not been established. Why w'as it then, that tho race had not perished at the outset. Nowadays, the appendix, tho tonsils, and adenoids were merely good sport for the surgeon but it was these organs which had originally acted as absorbers of germs before the process of natural immunity became perfected. Those organs consisted of rings of white corpuscles which were able to eat up and digest germs. Tho function of these organs was an early one—and they wore really analogous organs designed to prevent tho setting up Of infection. Tho reason why tonsils became atrophied as the human being grow older was that their function was being usurped by a more perfect organisation—that of natural Immunity or the production of anti-toxins. Probably tho tonsil still served a useful function but its usefulness was at its maximum in tho early years of life. The speaker stated that ho could not attempt to explain the present prevalence of appendicitis. No satisfactory explanation had yet been advanced but really what had happened was that it was only of recent years that the affliction had been called by its proper name. Dr King then proceeded to make clear that there was a difference between the two kinds of germs—ani--1 mal and vegetable. Vegetable germs brought about such things as poisoned 1 wounds, boils, carbuncles, tetanus, I etc. Malaria for instance, however, was brought about by animal organI isms. Life-times of research had shown that tiny pigmented bodies affected the red blood corpuscles of the malaria patient. The manner in which the malaria parasite spread through tho blood system had been traced but for many years scientists had been unable to discover the method of transmission of the disease from one individual to another. At last, a brilliant scientist named Ross, discovered that the method of infection was through the bite of certain species of mosquitoes. This discovery paved the way to the prevention of the disease by killing the mosquitoes when in the larval form.