DISEASES THAT CURE DISEASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 110, 10 May 1923, Page 3

DISEASES THAT CURE DISEASE.

NEWEST WONDER IN MEDICINE. A remarkable discovery which may revolutionise the- treatment of diseases has been announced by Professor Robertson at Edinburgh. Simply put, it is nothing more than the playing' off of one disease against another. Medical science has long fceen familiar with the fact that for every poison there is an antidote capable of cancelling its destructive power. Now it would seem the doctors are on the border of a hitherto unsuspected scientific territory. So far the new idea has been applied to but one disease—general paralysis of the insane, a terrible disease, which destroys both body and mind. Kxperiments over a long period showed that the inoculation of the patient with malaria leads to a cure of the paralysis. The method followed in this new and amazing treatment may be briefly indicated. The paralytic is injected with the living germs taken from a patient suffering from malaria. The result is as attack of malaria which, after it has run its course, leaves the paralytic cured of his own disease. Whet has taken place? The paralytic is the victim of a malign living organism which is poisoning his blood stream, and through that his nervous system. Hia body may be likened to a country invaded by enemy hosts.. True, there are in the blood stream itself minute globular cells, known as phagocytes, which are the soldiers of the blood. When a disease gains ground it simply means that the blood stream soldiers are being defeated in battle. Many methods of sending supporting troops to the aid of the army of phagocytes have been discovered as the result of the labours of the great French scientist, Pasteur, the chief being l>y means of inoculation of other germs at enmity with the invaders. The new method discovered, as the result of the work of Dr. E. W. Scripture, goes much further than tliij. It actually sets one disease igaiuet another In the patient's body, so that in the ensuing battle both may go down to •defeat in mutual destruction. The possibilities of this new cure for general paralysis of the insane are liuly staggering. It may inaugurate a new era in medical science; it may leail»to the extermination of disease. If what is true of malaria and paralysis is no. mere lucky chance, but the first step taken in newly-discovered scientific territory, then the problem of medical science resolves itself into an inquiry after the thousands of diseases, each of which may have its mortal enemy. Then cure will consist of applying the old remedy of letting dog eat dog!