THE LIGHT CURE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 259, 9 November 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE LIGHT CURE.

"Phototherapy" has become a recognised addition to medical language. The "Light Cure," which it designates, has come to stay. In the London Hospital, Finsen's electric light remedy for lupus, adopted on the recommendation of Queen Alexandra, and the X-ray treatment <Jf rodent ulcers, are, as the chairman of the hospital said the other day, working miracles. At the London Skin Hospital, Fitzroy-square, the surgeons have for over a year been applying the X-rays for almost all kinds of skin diseases with remarkably vsatisfactory results. Lupus, rodent ulcer, Eustular acne, eczema, psoriasis, and alf a dozen other affections of the head and face, mostly deemed incurable hitherto, have yielded to the treatment, which is extremely simple, atid relatively inexpensive. A supply of electricity, an intensity coil, and a Crookes tube are all that is required. The patient sits from five to fifteen minutes, and the Eontgen rays are directed to the affected part—the rest of the face being shielded by oiled silk. This process repeated twice or thrice a week—four or five times in severe cases—improvement begins and progresses until the malady is effaced. It is a question for expert professional opinion, to be determined by continued experiment, whether the X-ray or the electric light cure is the better. An idea prevails in some quarters that the Eontgen radiation leaves scars behind, but this does hot seem to be the case where suitable means are taken to adapt the current to the character of the disease. At Fitzroysquare an ammeter and voltmeter measure the quantity and strength of the current, which can be graduated with nicety to the requirements. It is well that for lupus both the ! electric light and the X-rays are being- tried simultaneously. For the public the grateful fact is that a host of malignant diseases will ere long disappear. Nor does the good probably end with the extirpation of lupus and rodent ulcer and the like. These maladies seem to be allied to cancer, and already the question is being considered, "May not the penetrating" X-rays, which can pass right through the body, avail to cure internal cancer, as they can, apparently, similar trouble which is superficial?" —and by a curative agency which is happily painless.