SPAHLINGER TREATMENT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 3 January 1924, Page 2

SPAHLINGER TREATMENT.

WHOLE THEORY AND PRACTICE REVEALED.

SIMPLICITY AND CANDOUR, LONDON, Nov. 5. Dr. Leonard Williams is contributing ! a series of articles to the Daily Mail on the Spahlinger treatment of consumption. "For many years," he writes from Geneva, "by the spoken word and the written, in journals lay and medical, I have been testifying to the value of the Spahlinger remedies for tuberculosis. Both in conception and outcome, I believe these remedies •to constitute so great an advance upon • any other kind of treatment of this disease as to give the public 'beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, •and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.' " j He tells of how M. Spahlinger laid ' his cards on the table last week. "Dr Thomas Watts, M.P. for the "Withington Division of Manchester, Dr. Henry , Jackson, the Mayor of Wandsworth, ; and I, spent a long and interesting day at M. Spahlinger's laboratory. These two responsible public men were present while he exposed to us the whole theory and practice, the complete science and art, of the preparation of his remedies. s "Surrounded by documents, testtubes, and re-agents, he poured forth his interesting story, dwelling upon his earlier cheeks, the retreats necessary when he found himself in a blind alley, and the hopes' and fears incidental to the exploration of a fresh avenue. Every now and again his soliloquy was interrupted by a pertinent question fired at him by one of my companions, which, having answered, he resumed the even tenor of his way. Other interruptions were provided by adjournments to different parts of the laboratory where we were shown the working advantages of instruments and "gadgets" which he himself has invented for * the purpose of facilitating i and speeding the work. | "At the close of the seance he inj vited as to cross-examine him. There j was no cross-exmination. He had put j all his cards on the table, and he had ! arranged them and then played them } for our edification. His cards are '. quite ordinary cards, but they are '. extraordinarrly well arranged, and they ' are^played in a manner which is simply s masterly. So much then for the ques- . tion of secrecy. There is no secret, j for a, secret which is known to other : people, if not exactly a secret de ! 'Polichinelle, is, at any rate, in the '■nature of a Cabinet secret which will ,be made public in due course. Such 1 a measure of secrecy as is still main- , tamed is maintained purely in the ! public interest; that is, to prevent perI sons from exploiting worthless nostrums said to have been made according to the Spahlinger methods. | "On our way back from the labora- : tory my distinguished companions agreed that, although the process is very complicated, the underlying principles seem so simple, so obvious, indeed, that the only surprising thing is ■that no one else has ever thought of , them. But perhaps someone has; if so, he has not succeeded in working them -out to a material conclusion. Therein lies Spahlinger's force. That he is a theorist must be obvious; that he is also extremely practical is shown .by ingenious labour-saving devices ; which his own ingenuity has pressed j into the service and his original methods of standardisation. ! "During the last few days I have j been reading reports to various over- , seas Governments by their respective medical representatives, selected men ; who were officially sent here to ascer-

I tarn the real facts about the Spah- | linger methods. I have seen th< j documents before, but they strike m< i afresh with the sense, so .startling i n j medical report, of approval expressed j in terms of unbridled enthusiasm. Anc j the writers are not Latins nor Celts. ! but sober, hard-headed, scionfcificallj ' trained Britons, fully alive tc i the responsibility attaching; to th« j task with which they have beer . entrusted. This is how one oi j them ends: 'My conclusions coincide with those of my colleagues. Aftei ', carefully weighing over the evidence | fully realising how difficult judgment is in snob cases, wo are of opinion that ; in his (Spahlinger's) methods we have advanced into a realm quite unexplored by any otjier observer. . . . M. Spahi lingers work is a great one, and will, i I am sure, if given sufficient light and J support, do more tn alleviate the sufferings of those afflicted with this disease and eradicate the tubercle bacillus in one year than all the present-day tnethods will do in 100 years." j "Tn considering the attitude of the mofiiVfl men towards anything new. it must be remembered that his training makes him an unbeliever. He does not believe; he tests. And if he cannot ' test he refuses to testify. Now these j men from overseas have )K ,t tested; they have only seen and heard. They have seen the. medical reports and the skiagrams, and they have seen some of ; the people whom the Spahlinger ■methods have rescued from certain death. And they have not only seen . these pe^nle, they also have beard them. They have also heard M. Spahlinger's very lucid description of haw his remedies are prepared. "Put they have not themselves t.est!el these remedies. Tt is. therefore. i a'l the more significant that they j -should be willing to testify to their effieacv. They did not test them, because there was none left to test. They nevertheless testified, because they know that for such results to be obtained something new must have come into the world of tuberculosis. Tn the j old world, treatment of the disease had ' surely come to naught. Snahlinger now opens up a new vi«ta. offers new courage, inspires fresh hope. "And this he does, not by a miracle itm- any dramatic gesture, but by laboriously erecting a superstructure unen foundations which have been well and truly laid by the great baeteriologist<= of the r>a=t. His work is not a revolution ; it is merely a painstaking evolution. Apart from the overseas . apostles there are others whose testimony can neither be gainsaid nor even i belittled. There are. for example, the numerous British and foreign medical mon who. during the last ten months. in the Lancet, the British Medical i Journal, and elsewhere hove published tbe details of eases treate',l by them at a time when the remedies were* relatively plentiful. Those are among the most eminent men in the profession in their respective countries."