NERVOUS DISEASES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23204, 31 May 1937, Page 11

NERVOUS DISEASES

HOSPITAL IN LONDON REBUILDING AND EXTENSION ITS INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE 'From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Maiir LONDON. April 28. It is a commonplace that the outstanding feature of the present age is the speed at which we all have to live. But it is perhaps not so well recognised how great is the toll which this speed makes upon the reserves of nervous energy of each one of us. The results of the strain and anxiety of modern life are found in many forms of illness and in almost every home" said the Duke of Kent at the annual festival dinner of the National Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System. The hospital is being rebuilt and extended and a national appeal is being made for £120,000. If this sum can be raised a like amount will be forthcoming from the Rockefeller Foundation in America for the establishment of a new research department. The work of the hospital is of international importance for the problem presented by nervous disease's is peculiar to no one country to-day. A number of distinguished people were present at the festival, including Prince and Princess Chichibu, of Japan, the Earl of Athlone, the French Ambassador, and the Japanese Ambassador. A sum of £25,000 was subscribed. A film that has been shown in 400 kinemas throughout the country, and which was seen by the guests at the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor presided, has been responsible for raising £ 18,000. A national broadcast appeal by Mr Christopher Stone was answered by donations amounting to £12.000. Lord Wakefield has contributed £3OOO. There are 186 beds in the hospital, and some idea of the work performed was given by Sir Walter Monckton, who supported the Duke of Kent. He said that 1500 people were treated every year as in-patients, and that no fewer than 300 operations on the brain and spine were performed annually. In the past 10 years 4260 qualified doctors from almost every university with a medical faculty have attended to study and to take part in research work. ■ "The appeal for a hospital which specialises in these ailments is an appeal that touches* each one of us," the Duke of Kent said. "With every step in the advance of-science and mechanisation there comes a new source of nervous strain upon the worker whatever that part may be."

The foundation stone of the new building is to be laid shortly by the Duchess of Athlone.