MALARIA AS CURE OF DREADED DISEASE.

Shannon News, 23 December 1927, Page 2

MALARIA AS CURE OF DREADED DISEASE.

CURSE B-UOME BLESSING,

LONDON, Oct. 19

The "mosquito cure" of locomotor ataxia caused some astonishment when it was mentioned in the Lambeth Coroner's Court. Dr. Frederick Clements, of St. Thomas' Hospital, who was giving evidence, said: "We have Had marvellous results from this treatment. Last year we had a case in which a man was really insane and after he was infected with* malaria he made a recovery. He has recovered his sanity and appears normal."

The result is really magical, there being no pain after the'first dose. There is no hope of arresting the disease without this infection."

The medical correspondent of the Daily Chronicle mentions that the cure originally came from Vienna, and has now proved itself in every civilised country.

If, ten years ago, writes this correspondent, any responsible group of medical men had been asked to name two diseases which Were essentially and in their very nature hopelessly incurable the reply wcjuid almost certainly have been locomotor antaxia and paralysis of the insane. The two are in reality, different manifestations of the same"disease; in the one, the spinal cord is attacked, in the other the brain.

Hitherto it has been believed that the symptoms in each case were due to a degeneration ol Jierve fibres of such a nature as to preclude any possiblity of rehabilitation; a death, in fact, of vital nerve tissue. This belief has been strengthened by every advance in miscroscbpical technique and chemical auTHEOEY EXPLODED. The "mosquito cure" explodes the whole of this apparently solid masonry. The above-mentioned diseases were known to be due to a blood parasite called a spirachoete; not to its present activities, but to a degeneration due to former activities long since arrested. It now appears that the introduction of another blood parasite—the malarial —will not only kill the spirochoete, but will actually clear up the mess ho has made in the nervous system. It may be objected that malaria is a serious disease, which of itself often j kills. i

That is perfectly true, but, inasmuch as malaria, in certainly 90 per cent, of the cases is readily and surely controllable by the harmless drug called quinine, the danger of inoculating it is very slight, and, where success means the cure of such horrible and deadly diseases as hopeless insanity and incurable paralysis, the risk is more than justified. Altogether, then the "mosquito cure" may claim to be one of the most bene-, ficient as well as one of the most, striking of the many advances in medical knowledge and technique which the present generation has witnessed.