HEALTH HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 173, 21 July 1906, Page 11

HEALTH HINTS.

LUPUS AND CONSUMPTION New discoveries in the treatment of lupus and consumption were indicated in a report submitted to the governors of the London Hospital. The N report pointed out that it had been discovered that by making certain tests of the blood a patient's power of resistance against consumption could be measured. These tests were, of course, made before the patients contracted the disease. If their power of resistance was found to he low a means had been discovered of increasing that power, which.would undoubtedly eventually be the method by which that dread disease mighi, be stamped out of this country.

Lupus was caused by the same microbe. . In the case of lupus the bacillus attacked the skin, and in the case of consumption it attacked the lungs. It was a fact that certain lupus patients had resisted all treatment by the Finsen lamp, having had as many as 500 sittings without effect, aud on testing the blood of all these patients the resistance was found to be so low that the patient undoubtedly go' infected as fast as he got cured by the light. Upon administering the new discovery and raising the patient's power of resistance, in every case the patient healed quickly and after a very few sittings. The Hon. Sydney Holland, chairman of the committee, said 100 cases were treated a day in the Finsen light department.

APPENDICITIS. Is appendicitis mostly a fashionable medical delusion? That eminent Jrrench scientist, Dr. Doyen, thinks it is, and, together with his famous colleague, Professor Dieulafoy, gives eloquent testimony as to wrong diagnosis leading to useless operations for non-existent disease. In Dr. Doyen's own experience operations.of the kind have been carried out on patients in the early stages of "typhoid fever. One .child was brought to him'for operation, on the faith of a family doctor's diagnosis, and he satisfied himself, by examination, that the symptoms pointed to'nothing ■worse than woms. go infatuated were the parents, however, that they removed the child and 3mA \Ae operation performed elsewhere.