TREATING LEPROSY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1922, Page 12

TREATING LEPROSY

BRITISH CHEMICAL TRIUMPH,

A permanent cure for thescourge of leprosy ,js anticipated frpm the. results of the latest trials .in London with chemical injections. Several cases under treatment are showing- marked improvement, a chemical research expert stated recently, and the 'leprosy bacilli have entirely disappeared from certain skin areas in whichl they- : -were - previously very numerous; " .'' ■_ /, The expert explained that the basic agent used in the' amelioration of leprous conditions is chaulmoogra oil, obtained from' a,., tree which .-.grows in Assam,. Burma;' aid,. Siam.J; At..first tliis oil was"taken inwardly, jn a crude state! as a cure,, but .subsequent investigation and therapeutic . trials have confirmed the assumption that better results canbe obtained from the-injection of the oil's derivatives, its. ethyl esters/ . ' This acid,.-.or . Moogrol injection' is now being very widely used. Its fame has spread to the Honolulu leper island where thousands. of intramuscular injections are being'made, with the result that, according to the latest. advice, actually SO per cent, of the lepers treated have been released on parole as being clinically cured and ■ non-infec-tious. The drug is destroying the living leprous bacteria in the tody;. "It is a triumph for British .chemical research,"' the expert, concluded, "and even on the results of treatments in London, we are.; looking forward to the perfection .of a permanent cure for leprosy with the greatest confidence." ;-i ' " ■ ' i...-