MODERN MEDICAL SCIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 23055, 6 September 1938, Page 11

MODERN MEDICAL SCIENCE

BANISHING DISEASE TERRORS TEN YEARS TO ONE’S LIFE How old are you? Well, take 10 years off and that is more nearly your real age, says U. H. Johnston, writing in ‘ To-day.’ From eight to 11 years have been added to everybody’s life during this century. Is not that the grandest news you have heard for many a day ? And it is not empty optimism: I-am going to give you the facts. One of the niost significant statements ever made, though it received scant notice, was uttered a few months ago by the famous pathologist, Sir Robert Muir: “ The numbers of people who die of old age are increasing.” Our now sensible life of sun, fresh air, and good food is partly responsible. That prevents illness. And at the same time, illness is defeated all along the line.

A few weeks ago Mrs Barbara Ayrton Gould, a member of the London County Council, was able to announce; “ Two cases of galloping consumption have been cured at an L.C.G. hospital. “ We have done what has never been done in the world before. Galloping consumption is supposed to be an incurable disease. . . . The cures are wonderful.”

Those two cures were made possible by a gold salt treatment at Highwood, Brentwood, Essex. The patients, two young boys, were called hopeless cases after the X-ray photographs. But now one has been discharged as cured, and the other is safelv on the road to complete and miraculous recovery. In Britain wc arc spending £20,000,000 a year to give us' longer life; all over the country ( ns in Europe and America, silent armies of miracleworkers are carrying on their fight against pain and disease. At Oxford, thanks to Lord Nuffiold’s magnificent gift of £2,000,000, a great new bulwark of medical research is being created. We and our children are the benficiaries.

From another country comes the nows that the Rockefeller Foundation, created out of the Rockefeller millions, ” to promote the general welfare,” has succeeded after years of experiment and costly trial in discovering a vaccine that makes 99 people out of 100 immune from yellow fever. So another terror is banished. Onco we in Britain were immune from “ Yellow Jack,” the most highly infectious tropical fever with perhaps the highest mortality rate. But the development of rapid air travel brought us within reach of the scourge, which is carried by mosquitoes.

Now the immunisation of pilots and crew and passengers, and the decontamination Of the machines which can roach ns from India and Africa within a matter of hours, can ho undertaken. 'Thanks to this now vaccine, the deadly germs have virtually had their fangs drawn.

'lhe Rockefeller Foundation spends millions of pounds from its vast pool of resources to make the lives of millions of people healthier and happier. It has waged a successful war on hookworm, malaria, and other diseases. Mnnv thousands of children would die each year but for the anti-spinal meningitis serum developed by the Rockefeller Institute.

We must not forget the splendid humane ivork of Carnegie Corporalion and its £25.000.000 endowment. Once -.t gave a few thousand dollars to help an obscure experiment which resulted in Ihe perfection of a svstnm of insulin Ejection for Die relief of diabetes, one ol the greatest of modern medical Discoveries. REFUSED A EORTCXE.

Amony Hie names of groat donors, ] must mention the name of Sister Klmahoth Kenny, an Australian nurse who lias recently been conducting a most remarkable demonstration at Queen Marv’s Hospital Cnrshalton, Surrey. Rather than accept an offer from a commercial firm of £20.000 for the secret, of her meatmenf for infantile paralysis, she presented it to the Com monwealth of Australia, ami then came to England to demonstrate it.

This great-hearted woman has worked living miracles. Children who might never have walked again, who might have been condemned to life imprisonment in an iron-lung, are now toddling happily, and “ hopeless cases ” are daily improving. It takes years to effect a permanent cure, but the treatment which Sister Kenny has devised can be carried on in the homo after leaving hospital. Measles are still a widespread childish complaint with dangerous complications. But Dr Jean Broadhurst and a band of colleagues were able recently, for the first time, to make the virus visible by means of a special stain, so that cases may now be diagnosed three days before tell-tale rash shows. To gain time against the enemy, or take it by surprise, is half the battle. Now medical researchers, impressed by Dr Broadhurst’s work, are hopeful of continuing her system m order to detect the viruses of other diseases like smallpox, meningitis, and infantile paralysis, thus leading to quicker identification and more successful treatment of them. There are still great victories to be won. But the fight is ceaseless and world-wide. From the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, we learn that the most stubborn enemies, in the order of the deadliness, are diseases of the heart, cancer, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other respiratory diseases, nervous illnesses, and tuberculosis. Happily some diseases are dying out, like dropsy and smallpox. The death rate from typhoid and para-typhoid, which was 113 per million in 1901, has been reduced to 0.3 p?r million. That shows you how the fight is going. But even hero there is cheering news. The Nobel Brize winner for medicine in 1937, Dr Szent Gyorgyi, is tackling diabetes. He has demonstrated the use of succinic acid, which makes insulin more effective in smaller quantities. Dr John P. Murlin has made another important discovery—a compound of insulin and hexylrcscorcinol—which enables the patient to be treated orally instead of by injection. This was first demonstrated by that great benefactor, Sir Frederick Banting. And Dr Singer, of Vienna, is working with splendid success on an injection and a diet which, combined, have produced complete cures within six weeks. Insulin is now being used to restore mentally sick people—of whom we have about 170,000 in institutions to-day—to health and sanity. It was Dr Manfred Sakel, an Austrian, who originated the ■insulin cure for victims of the mental disease known as schizophrenia. It is being tried out in London and Edinburgh, and from New York comes the news that within the past 12 months over a thousand patients have been cured in that city. It was Sir Robert Muir xvho said: “ Cancer is still a big problem, but it is , not correct to say that cures cannot be effected.” Now wo learn that Dr Franz Gerlach has succeeded in making v isible the ultra-microscopic germs that cause cancer. That is a tremendous stop in the march of medical progress. NEW LIFE FOR THOUSANDS. Within recent months miraculous operations have been performed on the hitman heart. Now muscles, new blood streams, and new life have been given.- - as well as great new hope—to thousands of sufferers. In Louisiana, a Dr Brooks has found a cure for pneumonia by using the injections of blood from a newly-killed ox. The pneumonic fever—if not long established —is quickly reduced. And, thanks to the wonderful discovery of Dr 11. Watson-Jones, which was first tried in Liverpool and is now successfully used here and in America, broken backs and broken nocks are now being repaired. Exactly 20 years ago we in England were attacked by the greatest and deadliest pestilence of model'll limes—’flu. The death-rate was appalling, and victims were swept away by the epidemic within a few hours. Since then our medical scientists have been labouring to find out three things: what causes ’flu, whore it comes from, and how it can be defeated. To-day the researches of our National Institute of Medical Research have nailed it down. Doctors now know precisely what the hitherto mysterious influenza is. That is a partial victory, but the fight goes on and on. Each victory gives you a year or more extra life. Ami science is not just tacking years on to the

cud of your life : it is in fact making you younger, giving you extra years when you can enjoy them.