SUNLIGHT, REAL AND ARTIFICIAL, STRONG IN CURATIVE VALUE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6617, 23 May 1928, Page 8

SUNLIGHT, REAL AND ARTIFICIAL, STRONG IN CURATIVE VALUE

Treatment by Such no Quack Thing Says Dr.

IMPRESSIONS BROUGHT BACK FROM ABOARD

“Times” Special. AUCKLAN.U, Last Night.

With regard to auniigut treatment it is largely advocated now and has become very popular ueeause oi its value in tne treatment ox riertets and .tuberculosis, said JUr. Leslie J. Thompson, an Auckland surgeon who has returned to Auckland alter a 12 months’ tour abroad. Ur. Thompson said that artificial sunlight was not a quack thing, but a scientific treatment. A lot of new things were overrated, especially by untrained persons, but in rickets particularly, artificial rays were used with great success. An interesting part of the tour was that which included a visit to Detroit and Airport. Here they were the guests of Henry Lord and his sod, Hdsel. Henry i'ord has a wonderful hospital Which is a hobby of his. He maintains a fully-paid medical stall numbering something near ICO, and a stall of about 200 nurses. Patients number only about 300.

The nurses' home is a sumptuous place. Each patient and each nurse has a single room with her own bathroom. In iact, said Dr. Thompson, in nearly all modern hospitals in America every patient has his own room and bathroom. In reply to a question as to how the work of our hospitals compared with what he had seen overseas, Dr. Thompson said it was quite good hero, but we suffered from lack of opportunity for an exchange of ideas. In England, he said, a great deal of attention is being paid to the value of general practitioners' work because or the importance of recognition of early symptoms and their classification, not only in the cure of disease but its prevention in its early stages. Tho_ late Sir James Mackenzie founded an institution at St. Andrew’s where general practitioncii co-operated with specialists in research work and many arc regarding their participation as the most important thing in furtherance of medical research. Institutes of that sort would be valuable in countries such as New Zealand where wo have lack of means of cooperation between men in the hospitals and those not in hospitals.