The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1910. THE WAR AGAINST CONSUMPTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15331, 14 June 1910, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1910. THE WAR AGAINST CONSUMPTION.

Skvehal now methods of treatment for the cure of consumption have been discussed during the past twelve months, and it is interesting to learn that Dr Camark Wilkinson, the discoverer of a special system, has met with sufficient encouragement in his experiments to induce him to establish a dispensary in Lambeth for the benefit of suiierers from tho " whito plague.'' A cablegram states that a six months' course will cost only £l, so that the treatment will be available for the poorest patients, and prominent men are supporting the humanitarian enterprise. The knowledge that >... i, ePn gained during recent years

will make tho world much more hopein 1 of its success than, it would havo

been even a decade ago. It has been proved by abundant experience that if tuberculous patients live in tho open air in a suitable situation and strengthen the natural forces of their bodies by good food and healthful exercises they are able to throw off the disease, unless it has been allotted to attain a very advanced stage before the treatment is started. The sanitoria which have been established in various parts of the world have achieved most gratifying results and hare altogether banished tiie popular belief that a person who had entered

upon a "decline" was doomed by inexorable fate to an early death. The question that has been, engaging tho attention of medical men is whether it would not be possible to assist the recuperative powers of the patient Ivy some direct attack on the bacilli that havo secured a seat in tho lung tissue, and so caused the disease. Sir Frederick Troves has suggested that beneficial results might possibly be produced by the inhaling of radio-activo substances into fbo lungs. Experiments have shown that the radium omauations will destroy dangerous bacilli under certain conditions, and careful investigations ol the whole subject are being made by some ol the world's • most distinguished men ol science. If Dr Wilkinson has discovered a practical iind inexpensive method of curing consumption without the necessity for treatment in a sanitbrium ho will deserve the fervent thanks of his fellow men. It must too remembered always, however, that from the national point of view cure is not more important than, prevention. The Victorian Board of Public Health has just been told by its chief medical officer that the seeds of consumption are being spread broadcast through the community by afflicted people and by the milk from diseased cows, and tvo are much afraid that the steps that have been taken in New Zealand to avoid infection from these sources are utterly inadequate.