TREATMENT OF DISEASES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 35, 10 August 1927, Page 8

TREATMENT OF DISEASES

(To the Editor.) Suy-In "The Post," 4th August, a short account v given of a lecture 8 by Dr A N. Slater on "Infectious Diseases: Their n???u ? nd Tr^tment." In speS of diphtheria and anti-toxin the kcturef is reported as follows: "The crus of the matter was the early infection of antftoxin even m suspected cases. The in--1 fhp n?f C°U ldil^ e/ d 0 a°y ha ™. but on Eood" Tli and f fdld- t an j^te .amount of good. ih !s oft-reiterated assurance of ■ the. efficacy and harmlessness of antitoxin does not convey to parents and oth!,ct A' ?^ A t shouid > in vie^ of the fact that it has been proved that many ua\e followed inoculation. Accounts of ■many 01 those have been published in the feftvhf entl f J\ and J ? 0 far *^ir authenticity has not been disputed. There seems h ? bf-S at the use of anti-toxin has been forbidden in Austria on account of its dangerous after-effects, and that the London County Council refused pennt sion to have the children in the schools under their jurisdiction, inoculated with HKTi^f^ these, Wflfced I H. Kellog, M.D., the Director of the Buleau of Communicable Diseases of California, recommends that the Schick test involving the injection ,of serum be "aC-i ffi ab^^ tely '- aa bein S Wte unreSh, O(c4 men ao2s) JOUrnal °f PuWic yis° P rS and pertinent to. point out that the public health officials m urging toxin-anti-toxin inoculations, are paving the way for evils f ? a? well- esceed those they are, no doubt honestly, desirous of avoiding " (Journal American Medical Association.) It is claimed also that inoculation with this serum confers absolute immunity against diphtheria, but Dr. Keith MooreY Australia, has disproved this in his own experience. Hd quotes cases occurring at iSendigo, one six months and another eight months atter Schick treatment, and says that m spite of the expenditure of much time and energy (and money) over three years, there is more diphtheria now at tfendigo than at Ballarat" (where there has been no Schick testing). (See Service Publication, No. 28, 1925.) Commercialism is rampant in the production and manufacture of all serums and most parents will require more than just mere assurance that this inoculation is for the ultimate benefit of their children.—l am, etc., ■ DDJRA. [We publish the above letter as an expression of opinion. Inquiries made show that Dr. Slater's statement is supported by a great body of medical authority, based on practical experience. Innumerable authorities could be quoted, but perhaps the following will suffice: The Bacteriological Committee of the British Medical Research Council, in a comprehensive report on diphtheria, says: "In summing tip, we can expres^ our opinion that there is sufficient evidence of firstrate value, backed up by a mass of statistics of secondary importance, and by a great body of professional opinion, to show that anti-toxin treatment is of the utmost value in human diphtheria." In an article on diphtheria recently contributed to "The Post" by the Department of Health occur the following passages: "There are few diseases where early treatment is so efficacious and so fraught with hope as in diphtheria. There is no disease also in which early diagnosis and prompt treatment are more essential. We have at hand a powerful antidote in the serum, commonly known as anti-toxin, one of the greatest triumphs of preventive medicine. Were it possible to apply this remedy in sufficient doses and early enough in all cases, mortality from diphtheria would almost vanish. As it is the disease has been robbed of much of its former terror."]