AN OPINION ON CONSUMPTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 16, 19 January 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN OPINION ON CONSUMPTION.

"M.D.," in the Chicago . "InterOcean," has an interesting contribution on consumption: During' the thousands of years whereof history tells us the great plague, consumption, has been the one disease that has carried off move human beings than any other known to man. There have been so many '■sure cures" discovered that one would think there could no longer be any danger of death from that source.

During recent years another name has been applied to the disease, and it seems to have added to the terrors instead of taking therefrom. Tuberculosis sounds much more terrible than plain, old-fashioned consumption. People were so \ised to the old name that it had, through familiarity, lost half of its terrors. Notwithstanding the new name and the many new cures, I do not believe there has ever yet appeared a remedy that is more potent than light. The germs of tuberculosis cannot stand sunlight; therefore, let the greatest amount of it in, revel in it, live in it. I told you in the last lecture about the room I had constructed in which the entire body could be submitted to the concentrated rays of electric light, and I promised to tell you of the results. One of the first, and most marked, results was in the cure of insomnia. Patients who had suffered from that nerve-destroying affliction so long that they had given up hope, and had come to consider their condition as fixed, came for the treatment of some other disorder. After remaining in the light for from five to ten minutes, they would almost invariably exclaim, "Oh, this is so delicious! I could, go to sleep here even on this glass bed!" They nearly always came out with reluctance. After a tepid shower bath they were given a quick dash of cold water, rapidly rubbed dry, and put to bed. A sound and refreshing allnight's sleep invariably followed. One case in particular I will tell you about. A widow, Mrs. H., had suffered the horrors of sleeplessness ever since her husband's death two years before. Her family physician, her friends, and she hei-self feared that she was on the verge of insanity. After the first bath in the gentle, soothing light she slept like a child. She continued the treatment for two weeks, and was cured. Inquiry developed the fact that she was afraid of the sunshine for fear it would spoil her carpets. Her house was a house of mourning—dark, gloomy and ill-ventilated; it is different now.

I found also that acute inflammatory rheumatism lost its terrors when the electric light bath and hot fomentations were vised, in conjunction with proper diet.

One of the worst eases of tuberculosis yet treated "was that of a boy aged 14 years, and it was one of the kind known as tuberculosis of the bones. In several places the bones had necrosed (died), and come out of the discharging ulcers. Some medication was used in this case, but not a great deal. The light bath and fomentations, antiseptic dressings, and a well-regulated and geijerous diet wcm the routine for six months. There was still some swelling in the right leg, and considerable hardened tissue. The entire swelled portion was bandaged in a plaster of medicated clay, which was replaced by a fresh one daily. At about the end of the eighth month the cure was pronounced complete. The lad was then as hearty and robust looking as most boys of his age.

I am convinced that if the majority of cases of consumption could, at the proper time, be subjected to sufficient pure air, water and sunshine, the cure would be complete. All woulc. not. require exactly the same regime.

There are cases that are just starting. A certain young boy or girl has always teen strong and robust, but after a few years in school the cheeks grow pale and thin. The doctors say ie is consumption. In such cases a trip to a warm climate might prove fatal, while a year of "roughing it" in a, colder climate, with plenty of rornp'nj; outdoors, life in a lumbermen's camp for boys, and skating, tobo£gHnjn,g, rowing, fishing, swimming and tennis for the girls—would soon bring back the roses. But, on the other hand, suppose the patient has always been delicate, and a decline seems to be coming, which is pronounced consumption. In such cases the sunshine of dry climates must be 'tried, unless one prefers to adopt the artificial or electric light, and have it applied by those skilled in its use and effects.

But, in any event, whether sick or well, take sunshine, whether north, south, east or west—get all you can of it, for it is life and health and strength, while dark, gloomy, stuffy rooms are disease and death.

That the modern electrical engineer should "have anything to learn from a fish seems improbable, yet it was recently asserted by Professor Join Perry that the study of the electrical eel and similar creatuxes may give valuable information regarding the transformation of energy/We cannot yet approach, the. firefly in the economical production of light, and in the same May these electrical creatures are far ahead of our best dynamos in the economical transformation of mechanical into electrical energy.