CONSUMPTION SCOURGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19216, 4 January 1926, Page 8

CONSUMPTION SCOURGE.

THE * QUEST OF A CURE. SYDNEY DOCTOR'S CLAIM. DR. MacCALLUM INTERVIEWED. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] CHUISTCHUECH, Sunday. Dr. MacCallum, Professor of Pathology at Melbourne University, who was mentioned in a Sydney cable message in connection with a report that Dr. Smalpage, of Sydney, had discovered a new serum for tuberculosis, is at present .in Christchurch visiting relatives here. Interviewed, he said he had had no actual experience of Dr. Smalpage's experiments and was acquainted with them merely through a pamphlet Dr. Smalpage had sent him. He had had no means of controlling the experiments, but he believed that they had been controlled at Sydney University. As details of the scientific results were not at hand, Dr. MacCallum said, no useful criticism could bo made. The whole thing was absolutely sub judice. Ho wished to make it quite clear that he expressed no opinion whatever as to the correctness or incorrectness of the claims made, because he had had no opportunity to examine graphs of the experiments. The method of Dr. Smalpage was to make an alcoholic extract of the lymphatic' gland, which was allowed to act upon tubercule bacilli, said Dr. MacCallum. It killed them and ultimately dissolved them. The filtered result in fluid was toxic. When introduced into a horse it produced an anti-serum. Dr. Smalpage had conducted a series of experiments to show that the same process could bo carried out in a living subject, and that the toxins produced by the breaking up of the tubercule bacilli in tho body could be neutralised by the anti-serum. Dr. Smalpage took two guinea-pigs inoculated with- tubercule bacilli about four weeks previously. Into one he introduced an alcoholic extract of the lymphatic gland. Although it ran about it died in a few hours. Into the other he introduced the anti-serum, and then the alcoholic extract. The subject showed no signs of having been harmed in any way; Dr. MacCallum concluded: "Dr. Smalpage claims to have had successful results from his methods in the treatment of tuberculosis in human subjects. If this is correct it is a great advance in 'the treatment of tuberculosis,-but it must be proved up to the hilt before any pronouncement- can be made from the scientific point of view. I understand that arrangements are being made at the Commonwealth laboratory for production of the extract and the anti-serum." The cablegram from Sydney read:— "According to tho Daily Guardian a young Sydney medical man, Dr. Smalpage, has discovered a new serum treatment for tuberculosis. The paper says that Dr. MacCallum, professor of pathology at Melbourne University, has written as follows to Dr. Smalpage: 'Dreyer and Spahlinger will fade from the picture if you can maintain your thesis that a serum obtained from the spleen can be prepared cheaply.' It is stated by the paper that it is estimated that 10,000 patients can be treated with the serum cost of only £75."