DISCOVERY OF NEW DRUGS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26986, 11 March 1953, Page 5

DISCOVERY OF NEW DRUGS

PRESENT CENTURY’S ACHIEVEMENTS COMMENT BY RESEARCH CONSULTANT (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 10. Future generations will look back on the middle of the twentieth century as a period in which many new drugs were discovered, according to Dr. Robert Forgan, who is visiting Wellington. He is senior medical consultant to a well-known firm of research and manufacturing chemists in England. Dr. Forgan considers that in years to come people will wonder why so much attention has been paid to men’s bodies, and so little to their minds. “It is now known that manv diseases are wrapped up in the state of the mind,” he said in an interview today. Remarkable progress had been rqade in the last 20 years in discovering drugs to deal with infectious conditions. Research continued in this sphere, but some scientists were turning their attention to a wholly different group of diseases—conditions in which a person’s personality and mind played an important part. “In this group are such conditions as high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, and arthritis,” Dr. Forgan said. “My work takes me to many parts of the world, and some 18 months ago I was m parts of Africa where less than a generation ago many thousands of people were the victims of sleeping sickness, a disease which, thanks to a drug discovered by the research workers of my firm, is being almost completely eliminated.” Dr. Forgan said that the work done in the field of anaesthetics probably eclipsed everything else during the last decade. Drugs now used to induce anaesthesia were safer and more effective than ever before. ■