HIGH TEMPERATURE TREATMENT

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 208, 30 May 1936, Page 6

HIGH TEMPERATURE TREATMENT

Relief of Rheumatism APPARATUS IN USE AT WELLINGTON Some difference exists between the methods used at Napier and at Wellington for the high temperature treatment of such complaints as rheumatism, according to a prominent Wellington authority. The treatment was reported to have been introduced recently to Napier, but treatment on similar principles has been in effective use for more than three years at Wellington.

A Napier doctor, interviewed by a Hastings newspaper, stated that apparatus known as tbe Wildes bath was being used at Wellington and was in every town in New Zealand. He fur ther stated that many private houses had them, and that they were doing good work. _ . Commenting on the interview, a Wellington authority said yesterday that tbe number of Wildes baths in New Zealand was very limited because of the expense and the cost of the installation. Furthermore, in order to be effective the treatment had to be supervised by a medical man with a knowledge of the subject. It was further explained that the high temperature couch in use in Wellington was not a Wildes bath, but was devised by a well-known London physician, Dr. Drury Pennington, of Brooke Street Clinic, and was based on similar principles. The difference was that the heat and moisture were supplied separately, the former by radiation and the latter by tittered steam. Thus, the two components could be controlled separately, and either could be regulated to a nicety within a very few minutes. There was no real definite control of temperature in the Wildes bath. Although in fairly large use in England, the Wellington apparatus was probably the only one of its type in the Dominion.