COLDS AND PNEUMONIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1938, Page 4

COLDS AND PNEUMONIA

DOCTORS DIFFER. AS TO THE CAUSES. By Telegraph—Press Association. DUNEDIN, June 18. The latter stages of a case before the Arbitration Court in which a labourer claimed compensation from the city council for sickness allegedly contracted at work developed into an interesting pathological discussion on the causation of pneumonia and the common cold. Dr D’Ath, pathologist at the Medical School, described the medical ignorance which exists in respect to the origin of both. He said that the profession had made some progress during the past few years, but was still working very much in the dark. Experiments had been conducted to induce colds artificially, but had failed, and the profession still had a very imperfect knowledge of the subject. Much was heard in pneumonia of lowering of the bodily vitality causing infection. There was no authority for that. The term “lowering bodily vitality or resistance” was merely an expression used to cloak medical ignorance. The witness was the sixth qualified medical man to give evidence, four having testified for the plaintiff and one for the defence. One of the features was a conflict of opinion among expert witnesses concerning the inference to be drawn from the plaintiff’s working conditions and. the disease contracted. For the plaintiff medical witnesses placed chill and exposure high in the list of causes of colds and pneumonia, whereas Dr D’Ath questioned whether cold or. thorough wetting could be postulated as a direct cause. All the medical evidence on that point was purely empirical, without scientific foundation.