The Spahlinger Treatment for Tuberculosis.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17938, 5 December 1923, Page 8

The Spahlinger Treatment for Tuberculosis.

It would be reckless, at this stage, and crnel to suggest to any sufferer from tuberculosis in New Zealand that Dr. Spahlinger could cure him if given a further fifty thousand pounds. There is no such guarantee. All that can be said is that Sir James Allen and the Hon. Dr. Collins between them have decided that the facts are promising enough to justify a public appeal. Their proposal is that the Dominion should finance Dr. Spahlinger for ona year, to the extent even of takover his debts and the mortgage on his laboratroy, and in return get "practically the whole " output of serum to the end of 1926." But it must not be forgotten that receipt of the serum would mean no more at the outset than receipt of the material for further practical tests. It would guarantee to Dr. Spahlinger an experiment under ideal conditions, and to the sufferers of the Dominion those benefits, if any, that the serum was found to produce. That ia to say, the appeal made by the High Commissioner is an appeal to New Zealanders to venture £56,000 on an. experiment WJiich may fail, but which, if it suc- > coeds t will yield results that money can-

not measure. For the cost of tuberculosis must be estimated first in tears: it i 3 the sorrow and angnish of it. far more than the economic losses, that keep us constantly fighting to overcome it. Yet no one can bo bo dull as to fail to realise what tuberculosis costs in pounds, shilling and pence. Dr. Blackmore 's statistics in an interview in to-day's "Press" —a million a year spent by the Poor Law Infirmaries of Great Britain, 2ial£ a million paid in relief by a single lodge, sixty-six million pounds devoted annually to the relief of T.B. victims in the United States, to take a few examples only — prove, if any one requires to have it proved, that it would be sound public economy to spend a hundred times as much as the High Commissioner asks for, if victory were reasonably certain. It must, however, be remembered that Dr. Spahlinger has failed to convince the Australian investigator that his treatment is worth anything at all. He has gained the respect of the British Ministry of Health, and, to the extent of £30,000, the practical sympathy of the British Red Cross Society, but ho has somehow not succeeded in persuading the scientific world in general that he is a great human benefactor on the eve of a stupendous vindication. The fact that he has had to turn to far New Zealand for support really proves nothing: it may mean only that he has a difficult temperament that'' to be great is to "be misunderstood," that medical science is conservative, and that New Zealand is particularly fortunate in its High Commissioner. On the 30th of June last Dr. J. Allan Thomson, of "Wellington, explained in an exhaustive article in "The Press" how many medical, financial, international, and even jorjjrnalistic interruptions Dr. Spahlinger had suffered since he turned first from law to bacteriological research. If ho is a patient (or an impatient) genius staggering under a crippling load of debt and doubt it will be a splendid tiling that New Zealand has come first to nis rescue. But no more can be said with certainty yet than (in effect) Sir Francis Bell has said —that the High Commissioner's appeal is ono to wiuch those may safely respond who have a pound to spare for a noble gamble.