INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23393, 7 January 1938, Page 6

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

The report of the Queensland Royal Commission which has been inquiring into the efficacy of the method developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny for the treatment of infantile paralysis threatens to confuse rather than simplify the issues at stake. The Kenny treatment has been rejected by the Commission as not representing an improvement on orthodox medical practice. The Queensland Government will now have to decide whether it will be guided by the judgment of the Commission to the extent of closing the Kenny clinics that have been opened in that State. The report of the Commission suggests, in point of fact, that there is little difference between Sister Kenny’s method of treatment and that recognised as standard medical practice, but it adds that where such difference manifests itself the judgment must be in favour of orthodoxy. There should be no disposition to view this apparently slender balance of opinion as indicating professional bias. It must be presumed that the Queensland Commission, which was composed of medical experts, has submitted a report without prejudice and based on scrupulous investigation. The present outbreak of the disease in Australia is taking a heavy toll, and there will naturally be a wish, harboured most keenly by the medical profession itself, to treat cases in the way that promises the best results. But Sister Kenny complains that the report has done far less than justice to her clinical method, and the New South Wales Minister of Health has added fuel to the controversy by stating that “it seems at variance” with the report of the medical committee which had investigated cases treated in Sydney. It appears to be a case of politicians and doctors in disagreement. And who shall decide when doctors and laymen disagree? When the Victorian branch of the British Medical Association protested against the intention of the State Government to establish Kenny clinics in Melbourne last November, the Federal Minister of Health, Mr W. M. Hughes, was provoked into making a retort in which he alleged that the association’s criticism .was “unconvincing, illogical and not free from inaccuracies.” It has to be admitted, moreover, that the experience of the clinic based at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney provided some justification for that spirited rejoinder. But the Queensland Government, apparently desiring to test the validity of its own doubts, resolved upon the logical course of entrusting an inquiry to an expert committee. That committee has now pronounced against the Kenny method, and its findings, in the ordinary course of events, should end discussion. Whether they will do so is, in the light of reactions already reported, definitely another question.