A COUNTRY PATIENT

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 128, 27 November 1923, Page 7

A COUNTRY PATIENT

* seeking Radium or X-ray treat- * * ment is greatly helped or" hinder- * * ed by the distance the patient * * has to travel, by the duration of * * ™c J°urney or voyage, and by * * the character of the conveyance * * and accommodation en route * *, For such patients, if they re- * £wn •"1 mid^le New Zea^. * * Wellington is naturally the * * PC3t centre, and its con- * * verging lines of traffic pro- * ifc vide the best conveyance for * * patients not able to live in * * *°y °t tl»e- four chief cities. * * When Radium Departments are * iftf established—as no doubt they * * will be—in Auckland, Welling- * iff ton, and Christchurch, the Bad- %■ $f iation service will adjust itself $fc * naturally to the basing of tho * iff middle belt upon Wellington. * $f Therefore, subscribe at once eft to & * * * Tlie Radium Appeal. ft ********* «********!

tain skin diseases. One may, of course, say that all medical treatment is experimental. The doctor diagnoses a certain malady, and he prescribes a certain remedy to combat that malady. That remedy may be looked upon as an experimental cure. Yet the doctor had his experience and hiß traditions behind him, assuring him that hia treatment is not experimental. One must not assume that because a certain treatment has many failures to chronicle, the treatment is useless or experimental. Against the failures one must also chronicle the cures. SOME ANALOGOUS MATTERS. "To-day the anti-toxin treatment of diphtheria is accepted aB the recognised cure for diphtheria. Yet not every case of diphtheria is cured by the serum. Anti-tetanic serum is always kept in stock to treat any case of tetanus that many occur. Yet many cases of tenanus die, although they have had full doses of the serum. Salvarsan is the accepted treatment for syphilis. Yet it will not cure every case. A line of unbroken successes is not necessary to' establish a remedy as good and efficient and beyond the experimental stage. Our consumption sanatoria built by the State to combat tuberculosis have many successes, but more failures. Yet no one will venture W say that these sanatoria are experimental and should be done away with, "So jt is with Radium. It has ha.3. many startling and brilliant successes. It has also had many failures. It has cured cases that were looked upon as hopeless. It has certainly cured many cases of malignant disease that were be}'ond all surgical relief. In other cases it has eased pain. It must be looked upon as one of the 'acknowledged and accepted treatments for malignant disease." NO BIAS AS TO SITE. In mentioning that "a radium committee of prominent citizens has been formed in palmerston North, under the presidency of Mr. Goring Johnston," to raise £12,000, Dr. Martin at once places the movement, above parochialism:^— "The Radium Institute (he writes) is to be for the North Island. The site of the institute can be decided on definitely when the necessary funds and support are available. The committee is not pledged to any particular place, and is entirely above any parochial or partisan bias. The committee thinks that Palmerston North would be the most central site for this institution. If another Bite is decided on by the Government'and subscribers, then the committee will loyally abide-by- that decision." . . . We have £2000 already subscribed' in' Palmerston North." RATHER. BELATED CRUSADERS. _ Nearly ten years were to paaß from the time Dr. Martin wrote the appeal to Wellington set out above before "Wellington took up the crusade. But now Wellington has done so. The goal Dr. j Martin did not live to reach is a step nearer.

And' here arises a vital Question: What did the Radium Appeal of 1914 (which was £2000 to credit when Dr. Martin wrote) finally yield? Ib the money intact, or has it been* partly or wholly diverted? . And can this money or any of it be secured to the purpose of the new Radium (Radiation) Appeal—the establishing of a Radium Department in Wellington Hospital, in which department country dweller will have right* equal to those of city dweller? .This important subject is now being investigated, with some promise of useful results.