TUBERCULOSIS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 12 December 1923, Page 5

TUBERCULOSIS

SERA AND VACCINES

SPAHLINGER AND OftEYER

STATEMENT feY sfft DONALD

M'GAVIN.

Major-General Sir -Donald M'Gavin. ' Director-General o£ Medical 'Service*, accompanied by Lady M'Gavin, returned to Wellington by the Tahiti to-day, after an absence of. six months, the main portion of the time being spent in England. They left Wellington in . June last, and on,arrival at Home went first to France, where they spent about a fortnight. They then retuttieil to ~ London. anS from there motored to various parts of England. They were much, impressed by lh£ fine surface of \ the English' roads Tor, indtdriug. Large numbers of vMtbrf? as well as English, ' residents, avail themselves o£ tlie opportunity of seeing the ■ country by means of char-a-bahcs—in fact, urbanising tho couhtry districts. Especially is the traffic heavy within a radius of, ' feay, fifty miles of London. In order w> gel away from these streams of eightseers il i» necessary to go further aneld than the fifty miles. Sir Donald and Lady M'Gavin left England for America ' by.the Olympic on 31at October, staydd, . a,™ days in, New York and Chicago, visited the Grand Canyon, in Arizona, spent a day or two at Los Angeles, and thence proceeded to San Francisco, where they joined the Tahiti for New Zealand. "Whilst in England/ remarked Sir Donald, "I investigated matters in cchneetion with War pensions and military i_|l medical work. What struck me •v.ei-jr mueli Was that in war pensioning, identical problems, although, of course, on a much larger scale, are being? dealt with iii Ehgiaud as navE had to bo iaced here; and there can be no doubt that^the war pensioners here'are treated : much more generously than they aro in England. I visited their appeal tribunals especially, as I had heard that such, were being instituted in New Zealand during my absence 1 am not,' howeVer, prepared to express any opinions on the subject at the present stage. "In America there is very 'striking prosperity. One notices the. enormous numbers of motor-cars. There are- hardly any motbr cycles. ' ' Apparently ho one is poor enough to use a motor cycle there. You see a house being; built, and there are perhaps 20 or 30 motorcars round it. These are the workmen's cars. Petrol is 7d a gallon, of which* Id is taken as tax for the maintenance o£ roads. SPAHLINGER EVIDENCE CONSIDERED. " _ "At the request of the High .Commissioner, Sir James, Allen, the Hbn Dr Collins, Dr. J. M'N. Christie, formerly of Wellington, and I discussed the Spanlinger treatment for tuberculosis. We were asked . to. give our opinion as to * the value of the evidence produced in favour of the method," remarked Sir Donald M'Gavin. "We considered the evidence submitted to us, from which 5t appeared that there was, sufficient evidence in 1 favour of the treatment to justify the expenditure of a fair sum of money in acquiring the material for the treatment to be carried out in New Zealand. It should be made clear, however, that this evidence *as not- thoroughly complete in its scientific requirements, namely, that accurate records of the cases before, during, and after treatment were not available, except, perhaps, in a very few cases.". _In-feply to a question as to the nature of the evidence, Sir Donald M'Gavin said : "The evidence was the written evidence of competent authorities -who 1 had visited Sphalih£er's laboratory The evidence included that of French, British, and other medical authorities. One great difficulty in dealing with the question is that Mr. Spahlinger appears to have no commercial sense. I . under, stood before I left London that Mr Massey and Sir James Allen were goinc to make every endeavour to secure material for carrying out the treatment in New Zealand. COMPLETE AND PARTIAL SERUM. "The complete seruhi will apparently not be ready for some two years or so, although partial serum has been used *ith apparently great success. Mr bpahlinger has not divulged the secret ot his method 'of preparing the' materials ' with which he carries out his treatment The consequence is that professional men have not sufficient evidence to make absolute pronouncements. This attitude "". of the medical profession has been attributed to narrow-mindedness. That is quite unfair, because, as I have said, the profession has had no sufficient opportunity to judge a s to its merits. I would summarise the position in regard to «he Spahlinger treatment in this way : it was felt that although as explained, the data were insufficient upon which to form a complete judgment, yet it was worth the expenditure of a fair sum of money for trial, as even if it were only a fraction as valuable as represented by Spahlinger arid others - the money would be profitably expended.

In answer to a question as to the discovery of a vaccine for tuberculosis by P,r- Dreyer, of Oxford, Sir Donald M Gavin said:—

"Dr. Dreyer's vaccine is at present under trial, and so far>as can be ascertained the results are encouraging. Sufficient time has not 'elapsed, however, to judge of the degree of success that will attend,the use of the vaccine." Asked whether this vaccine, if successful, would be a competitor with "the Spahlihger treatment. Sir Donald" said • "Only partially. The position is this": Spahlinger uses a serum and vaccine. Ihe serum is to neutralise the poisoning tubercle bacillus circulating in the blood; to get rid of it for the time being; and thus to prepare the body for the vaccine. The vaccine is to make the body manufacture its own antitoxin. Dr. Dreyer's treatment, having no preparatory serum, cannot be applied to the advanced cases, but such case* will, of course, never become advanced Ji taken early. Spahlihger has a seruiii for the treatment of advanced' cases The essence of* Dr. Dreyer's method seems to be tlie^moval bf a fatty envelope or covering SI th& bacillus, thus enabling the poison to come out from the Bacillus.