DISEASES THAT ARE DYING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 20, 25 January 1927, Page 17

DISEASES THAT ARE DYING.

j££DICAI' marvels of the FUTURE. TAKEN' AFTER MEALS ,By A T'HV-sR'rANM j[eii will renew two—or even three —periods of their youthfulnc-s and vigour. This fantastic prediction, implying consequences to the human race and the organisation of human society which the imagination can still only dimly apprehend. i- not a vi-ionary's dream, but a reasoned forecast of the immediate future deduced from the present state of medical science.

And it i 1? only one of the marvels which modern medicine and surgery are groping after -with increasing success, and which before long they will firmly ~r a, p—man'sp —man's mastery of disease, miraculous as it seems to u- to-day, is only jn its infancy, but already it shows the clearest promise of a. mighty growth.

The famous "monkey-gland"' operation of M. Yoronoff i- an indication of the goal to which -cicn.-e i- leading us.

It. has shocked ii;;i!iy people who regard it a- a -ai l ilr-i..u~ tampering with the handiwork oi i'ro\ idenee. But ail gur"erv —anil all medicine—if that. The'hiniifin body is controlled by certain gland- which pour into the blood chemical -uli-tances giving energy anrl virility. When there glands become exhausted with the passage of years, JI. VoronolT replaces them by grafting ou similar glands obtained from animals. There is nothing indecent in thi«. Man's immunity from smallpox is obtained by extracts from the body of an animal.

But in the future it seems likely th;;t the ope-ition of transplanting glands will be unnecessary. The active extracts of the glands will lie isolated and will be introduced into the body as a drug.

"Youth —t• i lie taken three times daily, after meal*.'' Jt sounds absurd, but already the extract of one gland—the tlivroid —is employed like this with extraordinary success. Kxtracts of other "land secretions have been made, but so far a sufficient concentration has not been obtained.

Research is going on unremittingly, however, and sooner or later success will crown it. Even now, when you have a tooth removed l>_v local anaesthetic, the bleeding is checked by one of these extracts.

Broken ljimos arc smother of surgery's problems, where the future will sec amazing changes. The X-ray has given us a means of photographing compound fractures which in the old days—and oo often to-day—would result in lasting ueformity. Now the surgeon can see the precise nature of the injury, anil his hands can manipulate the fragments of bone into position.

One British i>ionper surgeon has curried the thing a stop further. Cutting down through the flesh to the fracture, he trims the ends of bone so that they can grow together squarely and then fastens then firmly in position -with a silver plate.

Nerve surgery is another branch of the art which has sprung up in the last few years like a .mushroom, and gives promise of a most amazing future development.

It seems a daring conjecture to make, but nevertheless it may one day come about that surgery, by its new-found power to transplant nerves from one body to another, will abolish certain kinds of blindness. Sewing Up Severed Nerves. Already severed nerves are being joined together by the grafting on of nerve tissue to bridge the gap between this broken ends. In this way thousands of links which would otherwise be withered and paralysed, have been saved. The day when eyes will be transplanted successfully is probably still far off, but the path towards that final triumphant achievement of the new surgery is already stretching before us, alluringly, hopefully.

The physician stands on the rim of a new hope no less than the surgeon. Some diseases are dead, others are dying.

Typhoid and some tropical diseases can now be prevented. Rickets is fairly "on the run." Our grandchildren will not know it.

The mass attack on rheumatism and ite deadly sequel, heart disease, will bear fruit before long. Bad teeth are now known to be the primary cause of much chronic rheumatism, and the simple precautions which can be taken in the light of this knowledge will go far to reducing man's vulnerability to attack from this quarter.

As for the three most terrible scourges of mankind, syphilis, consumption, and cancer, the first is deprived of its worst terrors, but the other two still confront us with undiminished formidableness.

But there is no cause for despair. I believe a serum to counteract these deadly diseases will be discovered.