ARTIFICIAL LIGHT TREATMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20704, 30 April 1929, Page 17

ARTIFICIAL LIGHT TREATMENT.

OFFICIAL WARNING. EXPERIMENTS SHOWING NEGATIVE RESULTS. (From Ouh Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 19.In the annual report of the Medical Research Council a searching criticism is offered of the uses to which ultraviolet rays are now being put in the treatment and prophylaxes of disease. • “ It would seem to be the duty of those who take responsibility of prescribing light treatment, the report states, “not only to secure that its known dangers should be avoided, but also to find and announce evidence of its benefits that 3<> not come only from strong commercial advocacy -on the one hand and p-- !ar credulity on the other. It would seem also io be the special duty of hospitals and schools or other clinics expending large sums of public money upon artificial light to use part of the expenditure to demonstrate by properly-controlled trials their justification for spending more.” Prolonged research gives no scientific reason at all to suppose that the treatment of rickets or the supply of vitamin D to the body is better effected by ultnvfiolet rays falling on the skin than by the direct provision of the necessary food values. The general evidence from the vigour of the human life enjoying natural food supplies in the most northern lati tudes points in the same direction. “The use of artificial, light to supply only what, the right food can give is merely wasteful. It commonly costs Ss or 4s to give by light an effective supply of vitamin D that would cost loss than Id if given by the mouth in the form of cod liver oil or otherwise,” “ The discovery of this powerful intervention of sunlight in nutrition led naturally to the and even to the expectation, that it might act beneficially in other unrevealed ways. It was hoped that it might have other bene ficial effects on child life besides its indirect value in supplying a vital food constituent. Heavy expenditure was soon incurred in the provision of lamp treatment in many. schools and institutions.” EXPERIMENTS WITH CHILDREN. Following an experiment, no evidence could be found of any gain in weight; of lessened anaemia or - f better resistance to infective illnesses in the treated group as compared with a similar group of untreated children. During the winter of 1927-28 a further experiment was scientifically carried out with the approval of the Board of Education. Discussing the outcome, the report says: “ When conditions between the children with and without treatment were equalised, the results of the light were negative. It gave no gain in Weight, height, or observed mentality or ‘ spirits,' and the incidence of minor ailments such as ‘ colds ’ was actually higher among those receiving the light. The council are aware of no properly controlled experiments which have' been made elsewhere to set against these results. “The last report of the chief medical officer of the Ministry of Health shows that the results collected from artificial light centres provided by local authorities exhibit much variation of opinion. No objective evidence is provided that results have been achieved thal would not have been far more cheaply gained by proper food, and if that be so it is obvious that exercise and fresh air are greatly preferable to indoor sessions around a lamp.” MUSTARD PLASTER CHEAPER. The report states that light “doe* cause an increase in the power of the blood corpuscles, as tested in shed blood, to dispose of bacteria. “ This,” it is added, “ has ueeu largely used as a justification for the recent advocacy of light treatment among the profession and the public, not only for ailments of many kinds and as an aid to convalescence, but even for the preservation of n feel ing of well-being. But this increased bactericidal power of the blood, as shown, in tlie laboratory, has not, yet been correlated with; any permanent effects of value in the body. “It is quickly followed by a decrease of bactericidal power (power to kill bacteria), which not only soon returns to the normal, but at least sometimes goes below it afterwards. There is no present reason to know that artificial light ' can do more. in this way than a mustard plaster, which is infinitely cheaper.”