CURE OF CONSUMPTION. REMARKABLE RESULTS FROM INJECTION OF POISON.

Evening Post, Volume LXIII, Issue 87, 12 April 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

CURE OF CONSUMPTION. REMARKABLE RESULTS FROM INJECTION OF POISON.

I Tho folloAving information if true would be of considerable importance, but the Daily Mail, from which the item is taken, has already gained a reputation for announcing sensational scientific discoveries which disappear on investigation : — "The treatment of consumption by the entirely neAv method of injecting poison into the blood stream is at present claiming considerable attention by scientists in Greab Britain A recent number of the Daily Mail has the following description of the new treatment: — * „ - "Tho tubercle bacilli ore being poisoned in the lungs by an ingenious injection of a solution of formic aldehyde, and in many cases already, it is stated, absolute cures have been effected. Patients who Avere once regarded as consumptives of the most hopeless class have, following the treatment, been accepted by life insurance companies as 'first-class lives.' , "The inventor of the new treatment is Dr. Robert Maguire, the consumptive specialist and physician to tho Brompton Hospital. "Some time ago Dr. Maguire determined to attack the bacilli in a new way. The antiseptics hitherto used had to be so mild as not- to injure the stomach, where they underwent such further dilution as to be practically worthless. So with hypodermic injections; while pricking the lungs was risky and not to be too often repeated. ■ "Dr. Maguire thereupon decided on injection into the veins, and after lengthy and anxious search he selected formic aldehyde as the injection. The hole in the punctured voin near the elbow is so small that it voluntarily heals up with- . out treatment after each operation. "Tho solution of 1 in 170,000 of -formic aldehyde is fatal to the tubercular bacilli. If, then, such a solution can be introduced into the blood vessels and the lungs sluiced with it, the cure is apparently accomplished. "But would the heart stand the poison? It was found that an original solution of 1 in 2000, which was reduced by assimilation to 1 in 100,000 on reaching the right ventricle, could be freely employed, while solutions of 1 in 1000 and 1 in 500 have been used with perfect safety. The lungs are impregnated for the space of about twenty-five lieartbeats, and in the great majority of experiments the effect has been pretty much Avhat Avas expected. Tha solution is a sure germicide, and the bacilli have been exterminated. "The consumption remembering previous premature conclusions, have a proper reluctance to calling anything a consumption cure until its efficacy is beyond all doubt. Thero is, however, hardly any other word than 'cure' to describe some of the results which have been achieved. "In many cases, after only about six weeks' or two months' treatment at the most, such cavities as had been formed in the i lungs had healed up, and every trace of the bacilli had disappeared — that is to- say, such, a cure had been effected that if the patient then submirtecl himself to another medical man, ignorant of what had taken place, the latter would indubitably declare that the patient tad never had consumption at all. "Take an instance, one of the most remarkable imaginable: Some time ago a young man, a bank clerk, came for Dr. Maguire'B treatment. He was iv one of tho last stages of consumption. In less than two months from that dote there Avas not a trace of consumption about him, and, most convincing test of all, he was accepted by an inguranca office as a first-class life |"

The robbery of £500 from the man' ager of the Garden Gully mine at Bendigo by an armed man in a public thoroughfare in the city tends to emphasise the great risk that managers of mining companies and other officers, " who havo to convey large sums of money to isolated mines for the payment of Avages, continually run. Tho immunity from similar crimes in New Zealand, especially in the old days, is Avonderful. There was a time when tho Waihi monthly bullion Avas brought to Paeroa in a buggy by two men. with one revolver. If robbery can be effected in the city, what about bullion coming in from the back blocks? Magistrate : "You are charged wi*-h stealing chickuns. Have you any witnesses?" Prisoner: "I have not I don't usutdty eteal chickens before witnessed