RHEUMATISM IN NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27782, 6 October 1955, Page 15

RHEUMATISM IN NEW ZEALAND

STUDY BY WORLD AUTHORITY

HIGH INCIDENCE IN DOMINION

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, October 5.

New Zealand probably tied with England for second place behind Holland among the countries worst affected by rheumatism, said a world authority. Dr. W. S. C. Copeman, in Auckland today. The main reason for this was the climate, •he said. Dr. Copeman, who is chairman of the Empire Rheumatism Council and president of the European League against Rheumatism, arrived from England last night. Today he left for Rotorua, where he will help specialists at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to make a survey of the rheumatism problem in this country. Dr. Copeman will stay in New Zealand for a month at the invitation of the Government. There were three main causes of rheumatism, he said —climate, infection of any kind, and family influence. It was quite common for rheumatism to occur in families in which a member already had it, for example an uncle.

There were 30 to 40 kinds of rheumatism and it was therefore important to have the disease diagnosed and treated by specialists in this field, Dr. Copeman said. The trend in treating rheumatism was now to use the new chemical discoveries such as cortisone, combined with physical therapy. There were a few more recent drugs than cortisone, experiments with which in England promised more hopeful results. It was wrong, Dr. Copeman said, to treat all rheumatism patients as outpatients. Ideally every hospital should have a few beds for the more severe rheumatism cases.

Dr. Copeman declined to comment on the rheumatism problem in New Zealand before he knows more about it. But he said: “That the disease is so prevalent here does not mean that we cannot do something about it.”