The Marlborough Express. published evert evening. Saturday, May 9, 1896. OLD DISEASES AND NEW TREATMENTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXI, Issue 106, 9 May 1896, Page 2

The Marlborough Express. published evert evening. Saturday, May 9, 1896. OLD DISEASES AND NEW TREATMENTS.

4 The English and American papers are full of articles and letters on all conceivable kinds of what might be called medical novelties. Assuredly, if the next generation is not healthier, and the death rate lower, it will not be the fault of the medical scientists, for one alleged marvellous discovery follows another with bewildering rapidity, until were we to believe all we read, we should become convinced that human diseases are to be things of the past, and that a new era of universal health and longevity is at hand for the world. Unfortunately far too many of those much-vaunted discoveries turn out, upon careful experiment and test, to Fe practically useless. The germ of some disease is found, it is true, but the remedy | proves worse than the disease, and quite half of the new processes of medical science are speedily dismissed as impracticable, if not absolutely dangerous. At the same time it would be foolish to deny that vast | strides are undoubtedly being made I m medical science, and more especii ally are good results confidently hoped for — and by medical men of rank — from new methods of treatment which are now m course of testing with regard to those dread i scourges cancer and consumption. Some really remarkable cures of cancer are alleged to have been made recently m New York by a Dr Wells. The very word cure has an unfamiliar sound m connection with cancer, but m Dr Wells' new drug — protonuclein is its name — there seems to be good reason to believe that a remedial agent of great value has been discovered. The active element m the protonuclein treatment is the leucocyte, or the white blood corpuscle — the leucocyte long recognised as the natural scavenger, as it were, the disease-destroyer of the system, nature's only real anti-toxine or conqueror of the poisonous germs. The new method has as its basis the application of these leucocytes to diseased tissues, thereby destroying the perverted cell growth, whatever its kind and wherever located. The morbid, impure, poisonous growth once destroyed, nature restores the proper equilibrium. This, at any rate, is the contention of Dr Wells, whose writings on the subject have, we read, attracted widespread attention amongst his brother doctors. We can hope the favorable anticipations may be realised, but we have heard and read of so many alleged cures for cancer, which, upon rigid and prolonged investigation, have proved worthless, that we cannot help still possessing much of our old scepticism as to the possibility of a genuine cancer cure having been brought to light. Evidence as to the alleged new cure for consumption is less complete, but there appears to be a pretty general concensus of opinion that the bacteriologist will before long be able to Jsnccessfully treat consumptives with a new form of serum. Several of the most eminent experimentalists, have, it is stated, been busy trying to find a serum which, even should it not cure outright, will at least moderate the awful ravages of consumption. One development which is held to be of high scientific value was obtained by inoculating a number of dogs with bacili which had been freed from tuberculine by washing In six days time, while the animals were still m good health and before the infection had entered on an active period, the blood was

taken and the serum prepared. To this the experimentalist gave the I name " neoserum." With these tests < were then made on consumptive ; patients, but they are not yet so far i advanced to warrant the publi- ; cation of the results attained. ] In one, case, however, where a consumptive woman was treated by i injections of neoserum the action of ] the treatment was so striking that, j although it is not distinctly , known what the ultimate course of i the disease may be, there was marked , and rapid improvement, both m the patient's general and local condition, within twenty-five days after the injections had commenced. It is, of course, as may be seen from such cases as we have quoted, impossible to say whether complete cures of either cancer or consumption can be effected by the new treatment, but should it be found that by such treatments human suffering can be more fully attenuated and human life prolonged, the gain achieved will be no small thing for those responsible for the discoveries to be proud of.