The Spahlinger Treatment.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17207, 26 July 1921, Page 6

The Spahlinger Treatment.

The correspondents who have written to us regarding Dr. SpaHlinger'B treatment for tuberculosis are moved, no doubt, by a very natural desire that his treatment shall be placed within the reach of all sufferers from one of the great scourges of modern life. But they have no warrant for asserting that no notice has been taken of the treatment—presumably by the New Zealand Government —nor for exaggerating the situation, as one did, by asserting that 80 per cent, of the population have tuberculosis in some form, take the latter point first—if pulmonary tuberculosa.} had such a terrible hold on the community that eight people out of every ten suffered from it, the death rate in the Dominion for the ten years ending 1919, would be a great deal higher than the actual figures—^s.sß per 10,000 of the population, which is one of the lowest death rates from disease in the world. With regard to the other point, our correspondents have no ground for saying that the Government is taking no notice of the treatment. For oil they, or for that matter we, know, the Health Department is moving in the matter. It certainly should be doing so, and it will be time to charge it with indifference and inaction when we know ,that it has done nothing. Our correspondents are premature in speaking confidently of the treatment as a "cure." That is a word which, impressed as British specialists are with the possibilities of the treatment, they have not yet dared to use. "One must "not use the word 'cure,' " said Dr. Leonard Williams, a Harley street specialist, who was one of an English party lately invited to inspect Dr. Spahlinger's laboratory, and the processes of manufacturing the serums or vaccines used in the treatment. "It is criminal " to be hasty in one's judgment of such " matters, but the facts as we know "them all point in one direction. "They are sign-posts to hope." In his opinion the discovery in its partially proved results, and in its enormous latent potentialities is the greatest since Jeriner's discovery of the value of vaccination. It is rather saddening to realise that, but for the occurrence of the great war, the world might have been in possession of this treatment several years ago. Spahlinger went to England with it in 1913, but because he wished to keep his treatment secret t.he highest research authorities in the country would not have anything to do with it, secrecy in' such a matter being contrary to the ethics of the profession. Then the war intervened and stopped scientific research, the result being that the discovery has only now reached the stage that it might have attained in 1916 or 1917. In time, however, if it continues to justify the expectations—not of the public, which is rather too apt to make a fetish of a new "cure," but of keen-witted specialists who take nothing for granted, it will become generally available. The process of manufacturing the serums, to give them their popular name, iB long and costly. Dr. Williams seemed rather pessimistic as to the likelihood of money .being available for carrying out experiments on an extended scale. What was wanted, he said, was a millionaire philanthropist with a big heart who would back the idea literally, if necessary ,»for all he was worth. We con imagine no nobler way in which a very rich man could spend his money. But in the absence, of a such a man, the Governments of the wor!3 must take up the process, and make it available for all who need it. No Government worthy of confidence would hesitate to ppend, lavishly on facilitating the employment of a discovery which, if as potent as experts believe, wilL lift the shadow of death from millions of people. '