CURIOUS CURES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 218, 15 September 1930, Page 6

CURIOUS CURES.

simple little treatment like a stroke of lgiitning may make the deaf hear, cure paralysis or anemia, or cut off a lame leg neatly at just the right place to fit on a wooden or cork one. ut it is so tantalising—doctors cannot prescribe thunderbolts. That is the regret of Dr. Robert • w ho writes on this entertaining topic in lhe Medical Review of Reviews." Curious cures are of many kinds, he says. Some may be simply unexpected results of unusual treatment; others are peculiar effects of treatment on a basis that is quite understandable; still others are due to healers who represent speculative propaganda, Writes Dr. Morris : ing the first group of cures—unexpected results of unusual treatment—we may note a number of results following lightning-stroke. A "-ood many persons have been struck by lightning and l^ 10 uerc kM e <l have shown peculiar after-effects some of them being curative of illness. Tilesius records a case of a deaf man struck by lightning whose hearing returned immediately afterwards. A man in Carteret County, Noith Caiolina, with paralysis of facial muscles, and unable to close his. eyelids, was cured by a j stroke of lightning. In the Sycyando case, of [ Cracow, a young man who had a painful stiff right knee .was riding in a wagon which was struck by lightning, and the leg was cut off at just the right place to allow him to wear a false leg, subsequently. . The leg was found at the roadside, a few days later. , "Le Contc describes a ease of a negress suffering fiom anaemia, apparently of the pernicious and sometimes incurable type, who promptly returned to a normal condition of health, after being struck by lightning. This same author refers to an elderly woman, decrepit as a result of years, who returned to a .peculiarly normal condition of young womanhoqd, following a lightning stroke. I know of some who would take that chance. An ambulance surgeon told me of a hurry-call to a case of kink in the bowel, which, all doctors know, l'epresents an extremely serious condition with impending disaster. On the way to. the hospital the bumping of the ambulance unkinked the.bowel, the patient was cured, and walked back to her home the same day. Unfortunately,, none of these kinds of cure may be prescribed by us physicians in regular practice. We would like to.know of treatment that would take hold like lightning. "In our second group we have peculiar cffects. of treatment on a basis that is understandable. For example, we find, sometimes, that when a proper adjustment of glasses has been made for a • patient suffering from eye strain a chronic dyspepsia is promptly cured. Cocain or. nitrate of silver, havinsr the effect of desensitising a certain tiny spot in the nose, will sometimes completely cure certain disturbances 'of function belonging to women. A child whose lungs have ' been examined repeatedly in a search °for an ' explanation for persistent cough may be instantly cured when the doctor finds that the child has pushed a bean into its ear—the bean their-, be in'" '• removed. A rheumatism involving the kneejoints may promptly disappear upon discoverv 1 and treatment of an infected'tooth root, and no ' end of mysterious illnesses disappear upon removal ' of infected tonsils.; A number,, of forms of 1 insanity, become cleared up when proper attention ' is given to treatment of -some of the 'closed glands,' as they are called—the thyroid gland, for example. Somebody who was deaf,discovered £ that hearing had been temporarily regained after J i> rapid descent in an airplane, accident, and for" i while a great many other persons then subjected themselves to this dangerous and expensive treatment, until it was found that the same rapid I :hange in pressure might be accomplished in 7; ampler ways by,ear specialists." ;

The third group—the so : ca'lled cures conducted by healers—Dr. Morris believes to 'be based .upon "capitalisation, of optimism." The pessimist with the same ills nvufet remain Uncured, he says as a penalty for an ungracious attitude. "What is knowji as £ a state of mind 5 \pll account for .so many illnesses that a change may brine; about a cure..' We must except, of course,'actual^organic diseases and infections, but even these be dietmotly benefited at times/' 3