AGAINST B.M.A.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 205, 31 August 1933, Page 5

AGAINST B.M.A.

>. DOCTORS TO REVOLT. ) • CLIMAX AFTER TEN YEARS. NATIONAL HEALTH LEAGUE. After ten years of quiet but ceaseless organisation, more than two thousand , doctors are ready for the biggest revolt s in the history of British medicine. The ' revolt is directed against the British ; Medical Association, "the strongest trade union in the world," and against orthodoxy, says the "Sunday Dispatch." They are determined to build a new and healthy England, even though it operates against their own pockets. And their campaign, which will open shortly, j will not be deterred by the tradition, j etiquette, or stringent regulations of! the association. The 2000 doctors are j members of the National Health League, j which has for ten years .been in process J of formation. Its president is Sir Augustus FitzGeorge, K.C.V.0., son of the late Duke of Cambridge, and at one time A.D.C. to King Edward when he was Prince of Wales. Medicine Side-tracked. Many eminent men are on the committee, and the rank and file include the 2000 qualified doctors, all enrolled and numbered like an army. The basis of the attack is that for the past generation medicine has been sidetracked by the theory that germs are the cause of disease. Their contention is that germs are incidental to the later stages of disease, and that such scourges as cancer and consumption can be detected and cheeked before the danger stage is reached. The league has acquired its own printing plant, and is arranging to publish a weekly paper named "Dawn," in which the experiments and findings of members will be published, irrespective of whether they are likely to be approved by established medicine. Lay co-operation .on a scale never before permitted in medical circles will be sought.

Parliament will be asked to take action on the whole operation of medical service in the country, and when the time comes the 2000 doctors will disclose themselves. Questions are to be asked in Parliament on the actual results obtained from the hundreds of millions spent on health services and research on orthodox lines. A Vital Key. A great movement is being planned to reorganise agriculture and to restore prosperity to the small holder (who is regarded as a vital key in the plan for a new England) by balancing the minerals in the land, which, it is claimed, will intensify crops and stamp out bovine tuberculosis. The leader of the research department is Professor 0. A. Fewell, a London scientist, who some years ago inherited a fortune. He laid out the money in a well-equipped and fully staffed laboratory, and has achieved some extraordinary results, notably in blood tests. "I have enough money to last me for the rest of my life, which will not be very long," he told a "Sunday Dispatch" reporter. "My health has been badly undermined by operations and inoculations conducted for experimental purposes. I do not believe that good results can be obtained from experiments on animals, because their mental reactions are so utterly different. Debate in House. "I have been greatly weakened by the toxic effect of inoculations with the blood of a cancer patient. It is a strict rule of the league that nobody connected with it shall profit financially. It is a sad thing to say, but medicine is run for profit. It ought not to be. We want England restored to her rightful place as the vigorous leader of the world. "A group of Parliamentary members is at work collecting evidence, prior to raising a debate in the House on the health services. The Germ Theory, which English medicine adopted from the Continent, postulates that every disease is caused by a definite micro-organism which is specific for that disease and introduced to the body from outside sources. Even when no casual organism can be isolated or seen, it is assumed that the cause is a germ that is ultra microscopic, of a filter passer, thus begging the whole question. "I maintain that in no single instance has it been conclusively proved that any micro-organism is the specific cause of &

disease. In diphtheria the argument is used when the bacillus fails to appear in the early stages, that it will appear later on. And if it does not appear, the reply is that it has been crowded out by other organisms! Heads I win, tails you lose! "Professor Woodliead told the Royal Commission in 1912 that the Klebs Loeffler bacillus was found in the throats of healthy persons. Yet it has been associated with 17 diseases. There are cases of distinguished men who deliberately swallowed millions of 'deadly' germs with no ill effect. The Alternative. "The alternative theory is the Biochemical Theory, which we advance. It is based on the principles that faulty living, unhygienic surroundings, wrong mental and emotional states, impair the vital functions of the body, causing a disturbance of the chemical actions and reactions, that is, metabolism. This disturbance leads to germs, which are frequently the natural beneficent constituents of the body, becoming virillent. But the ultimate effect of these germs is towards the restoration of the balance of the vital functions. They act as scavengers for the elimination of waste produces resulting from the disturbed chemical balance. "The doctors of England, free from the archaic rules of the 8.M.A., the veterinary surgeons, and the farmers, can build the healthiest race this country has ever known, if, on the other side of the battle, the people are relieved from terrible overcrowding." At a recent meeting of -health experts. Sir Augustus FitzGeorge said that 75 per cent of the recruits offering themselves annually for the army were rejected for chiefly preventable diseases. Britain could become an A 1 nation in a single generation. The cure of disease was a matter of great importance, but the preservation of health was of greater importance still.