Consumption Cures

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 18, 30 April 1903, Page 18

Consumption Cures

There was a time when, if a medical man's diagnosis spelled consumption it meant a sentence of death. The patient made his will, and his insurance policy ,was npt

long in falling due. But, although the microbe is still king in the hinterlands of medical discovery, that of tuberculosis has been dethroned arid has ceased to be a thing of terror. The Nordrach, or open-air, treatment of consumption has proved itself a genuine remedy for the early stages of the disease. We have personally seen, in the ' Nordrach Sanatorium,' near Dunedin, • a marvellous improvement wrought even in some patients that had reached a very advanced and apparently hopeless stage of this parasitic martLdy. And still the reports of new remedies come to us over the wires. A few days ago, for instance, a message was flashed afar over the cable from Berlin, which ran as follows : 'M. ' Schneider, a Berlin chemist, after travelling through Australia, induced some lung specialists to use sanosin, made from eucalyptus oil mixed with sulphur and charcoal, and evaporated over alcohol lamps. The patients inhale the vapor. The remedy has been tried in several hospitals, and 60 out of 100 cases of tuberculosis are reported cured.'

• Dr. Fralick, a New York physician, endeavors to get to close quarters with the bacillus of tuberculosis by injecting antiseptic solutions In large quantities into the .veins of the sufferers. And it is claimed that his method has succeeded amazingly in clearing the invaded tissue of the depredations of the wretched parasite. Hfis colloborator, Dr. Allen, says of the Fralick physic : ' The Fralick intra-venous infusion method is an extension of the method first used by Baccelli of Italy. Baccelli and his Italian followers used small quantities of such substances as bichloride of mercury, antipyrine, silver nitrate, gelatin, ergot, chloral, quinine, and oxygen, introducing these medicaments directly into the vascular system. Dr. Fralick's method differs from Baccelli's in that he uses large quantities of comparatively nonpoisonous antiseptics. He cuts down to the vein, exposing it for a short distance. Then the fluid is introduced by inserting a needle into the vein and allowing it to run by gravity. Treatment has been remarkably successful in the first stages of the disease. We hope,' Dr. Allen concludes, ' that in time it may be found possible to cure the disease in any stage.'