MEDICAL CONGRESS

Otago Witness, Issue 3100, 13 August 1913, Page 27

MEDICAL CONGRESS

OFFICIAL OPENING. LONDON, August 6. The Government entertained at a banquet in the Hotel Cecil 500 delegates to the Medical Congress. Lord Morley, who presided, said it was a genuinely international gathering of the brightest stars in the medical firmament. Twenty-three halls have been secured to accommodate the sections, and 600 papers will be read. The discussions will be conducted in certain sections in English, French, German, and Italian, and in at least one section in Esperanto. August 6. The International Medical Congress has opened at the Albert Hall. Eight thousand people were present Many of the delegates wore their academic gowns. Prince Arthur of Connaught, in welcoming the delegates on behalf of the King, recalled the fact that Pasteur’s discoveries were the feature of the 1881 congress, but Rontgen rays and radium had furnished the medical world with far more powerful weapons for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Australia, New Zealand, and the other dominions had assisted England to convene the present congress, thereby forging another link in the Imperial ideal. Sir Thomas Barlow (president of the Royal College of Physicians) delivered the presidential address. Professor Schafer (president of the Physiology Section), in a notable address, said that physiology could not be divorced from medicine, and must depend on the support it always received from the medical profession in repelling attacks on its methods by ignorant fanatics in all countries. INCREASE OF LUNACY. LONDON, August 8. At the Medical Congress Dr J. Crichton Browne spoke seriously on the increase of lunacy, which is out of proportion to the increase in population in all settled countries. In England and Wales in 1859 there were 36,762 insane persons, and in January, 1913, there were 138,377 —an increase of 276 per cent, compared with 87 per cent, increase in population for the same period. Sir J. Crichton Browne said there was no good reason for a vigorous expansion of the race in view of the present increase in lunacy. Notwithstanding the successful treatment of those diseased hitherto contributing to lunacy the accumulation of chronic lunacy rolled on, while the rate of recovery had fallen through the last halfcentury. TUBERCULOSIS IN SCOTLAND. LONDON, August 8. Dr Stiles, of the Edinburgh Hospital for j Children, said the great prevalence of j tuberculosis among Scottish children is due to dairy cows and to unsterilised milk. DECLINE OF PLAGUE. LONDON, August 8. Major Liton (Bombay) declared that the decline of plague in various centres was

irrespective of restrictive measures, being due to the production of a race that was immune and the process of the survival of the fittest. TROPICAL DISEASE. LONDON, August 9. Professor Paul Ehrlich described the effects of his famous drug “ Salvarsan ” on disease, which had been for years the scourge of the tropics. A single injection had cured 300 patients, and the same results were obtained in recurring fevers and forms of malaria. FIGHT AGAINST TYPHOID. LONDON, August 9. Professor Vincent reported on antityphoid inoculations in 1912 among the French troops in Morocco. Sixteen per cent, of those who were not inoculated contracted the disease as against one in 5000 who were inoculated. THE GANGER SCOURGE. LONDON, August 9. Dr Barlow, of the Middlesex Hospital, in a discussion on cancer stated that he had found radium elements in a considerable number of cancer cases, and therefore it was clear, whether they considered it from the view-point of chronic irritation or chemical pathology, that it was necessaiy to determine whether radium played a part in the problem. Dr W. L. Braddon said he considered it established that beriberi fever could bo avoided by changing the native diet from deglutinised to whole rice. Dr R. Blitz suggested that frozen meat formed the nucleus of cancerous toxins. The chairman stopped the speech, the idea being greeted with laughter. A NEW DISEASE. LONDON, August 8. Dr Beale (Texas) described a new disease, pellagra, whereof 3000 Americans died in 1912, and from which 50,000 were now suffering. The latter were mostly women who were “ tied” to the house. It was a work disease. It was known in Italy. Investigation had shown that it was fairly widespread in Scotland, and there had been isolated cases in the South of England. It first produced an itching of the hands, usually in the springtime. Later the digestive organs were attacked, [ and finally the victim was afflicted with melancholia and insanity. The cause was

generally attributed to fungi upon the corn and maize.

i Pellagra (Italian poll© agra, smarting I skin) is the name given, from one of ita ! early symptoms, to a peculiar disease of I comparatively modern origin. For some | time it was supposed to be practically con* ; fined to the peasantry in parts of Italy and Franco, and in the Asturias, but it has recently been in various outlying parts of the British Empire (Barbadocs, and India), and in both Lower and Upper Egypt; also among the Zulus and Basutos, It is in Italy, however, that it has been most prevalent. The malady is essentially chronic in character. The indications usually begin in th© spring of the year, declining towards autumn, and recurring with increasing intensity and permanence in the spring seasons following. A peasant who is ; acquiring the malady feels unfit for work, suffers from headaches, giddiness, singing in the cars, a burning of the skin, especially in the hands and feet, and diarrhoea. At the same time a red rash appears on th® skin, of the nature of erysipelas, the red or livid spots being tense and painful, especially where they are directly exposed to th® sun. About July or August of the first season these symptoms disappear, the spot® on the skin remaining rough and dry. With each successive year the patient become® more like a mummy, his skin shrivelled and sallow, or even black at certain spots, his angles protruding, his muscles wasted, his movements- slow and languid, and his sensibility diminished. After a certain stage the disease passes into a profound disorganisation of the nervous system. There is «. tendency to melancholy, imbecility, and a curious mummified condition of the body, i After death a general tissue degeneration i is observed. In 1905 Dr L. W. Sanibon, at the meeting of the British Association, suggested that pellagra was probably communicated by sand-flies, and this opinion was , supported by the favourable action of arsenio ]in the treatment of the disease. In January, 1910, an influential committee waa ' formed to enable Dr Sanibon to pursue his \ investigations in a pellagrous area. CURE OF CONSUMPTION. LONDON, August 10. Professor Ehrlich, in the course of an address on pathology, after referring to the success arising from tlie destruction of the germs of smallpox, scarlatina, typhus, and yellow fever, raid, on the other hand, the cure of tuberculosis needs a hard struggle, but he believed that the next five years would record the highest advances in this field of research. GARDEN PARTY. LONDON, August 10. Two thousand delegates to the Mfedical Congress attended a garden party at Windsor Castle. .