MEDICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3911, 26 February 1929, Page 31

MEDICAL NOTES.

INOCULATION FOR INFLUENZA. PREVENTION OF DISTEMPER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, January 5. It is expected that the new vaccine to prevent distemper in dogs will be available to the public in about three mouths’ time. Arrangements for the production of the vaccine, which was discovered by Dr Laidlaw and Mr F. W. Dunkin at ‘he Mill Hill laboratories of the Medical Research Council after years of study, have been made with a firm of wholesale manufacturing chemists, and it is hoped to place it on sale in reasonably large quantities in April. The research which led to the announcement of the vaccine was conducted on behalf of the Distemper Fund of the Field, and Mr E. W. Moss-Blundell the secretary, has appealed for a further £5OOO for the fund to finance work wuch is still going on for the purpose of perfecting the remedy. As the original discovery has aroused the interest of 'Joglovers and brought correspondence from all parts of the world, the new money required should be forthcoming. THROAT OPERATIONS. An ingenious instrument for carrying out a troublesome minor surgical operation has been devised by a throat specialist. It is intended for opening “ quinsies ” or abscesses in the tonsil, and can best be described as a cross between a cigar-piercer and an air-gun. It is not easy to use a sharp surgical knife inside the mouth of a terrified child, or even of a nervous adult. An accidental movement may do damage. For that reason many surgeons prefer the risk and trouble of a general anesthetic, although the operation is no more than a momentary prick. The new apparatus obviates the risk of unwanted incisions. The blade, a tiny, needle-pointed one, is completely protected by a hollow barrel. Until a button is pressed, the blade is held in position. Push the button, and it shoots out a fraction of an inch, after the barrel has been brought into contact with the tonsil. The operation is completed, and the whole instrument (only the size of a fountain pen) whipped out of the mouth before the patient has time to move a muscle. TIGHT BIBS. Tight bibs and tight hat elastics were condemned by Dr Octavia Lewin, medical officer to the Westminster Health Society, addressing the Winter School for Health Visitors and School Nurses at Bedford College for Women. “ Tight bibs will convert children into mouth breathers,” she said. “ A short while ago a woman brought a baby to me with its mouth gaping open. I tried to put my finger between its neck and the bib, but found I could not—the bib was done up too tightly. It is an appalling fact to think that a' mother in a country like this could be so uneducated as not to know that baby must not have tight bibs. Look at the animals. Would any kitten live if it had a tight collar put round its neck? Would any horse be safe to ride with a tight band round its neck? “ Not only do we allow tight bibs,” continued Dr Lewin, “ we allow children to go about with tight hat elastic which leaves a deep cut like a little railway track under their chins. “STRANGLING THE TONSILS.” “ So prevalent has been the fashion of strangling the roots of the tonsils that that horrible condition is brought about which makes it necessary to have the tonsils cut out. By all means cut them out when they have got out of control, but let us see that they do not get out of control. “ The conditions that cause these tonsil complaints are going to fill out montally deficient homes. Many people would never have gone into these homes if healthy habits had begun when they were younger.” Every baby should have its own pocket handkerchief from the day it was born, she added, and also a pocket of its own in which to keep it. Dr Lewin said that many people were surprised to hear that canaries and elephants sneezed. Animals had no difficulty in keeping their noses clean, not even the elephant with its yard and a-half of nose, nor did one ever see animals going about with their mouths open. No fewer than 16 different diseases, including mastoid disease, which was terribly common to-day, resulted from a neglected nasal organ. “Never backfire your sneeze,” said Dr Lewin. “ The sneeze is nature’s superb effort to save us, and yet we attempt to backfire it.” INFLUENZA INOCULATION. The influenza microbe, whatever it may be, must be a very small one (writes the medical correspondent of the Daily Mail). In the specially equipped laboratory for influenza research at St. George’s Hospital, S.W., they have filters of unglazed china clay through which infected fluids are drawn by suction. Even under a “ negative pressure,” or suction of 281 b to the square inch no microbe with a girth of more than one hundred thousandth of an inch can hope to get through. Yet the germ still eludes discovery. But the research department, established a year ago, has already done valuable preventive work although the germ is unknown..

It haa been hampered by two factors. The first has been the scarcity of material. There has not been enough influenza of a severe type to provide the bacteriologists with the necessary microscope fodder. The second is the lack of funds. Some idea of the investment value of money in such research work may be gained from the experience of one of the great London stores. Two hundred of their employees agreed to be inoculated against influenza. The vaccine used was a mixed one, prepared from all the microbes normally found in the course of the disease. It was found that 70 per cent, of those who had influenza colds in the previous winter did not have them in the succeeding winter, and that only 20 per cent, of those who had been free the year before were attacked. Tl.e result, in terms of health, showed a credit balance of 50 per cent. “ TIME OFF ” FOR MOTHERS. Dr Alice Hutchison, of Tavistock Square Clinic for Functional Nervous Disorders, believes that every mother should have at least an hour and a-half away from her children every day. “ This is essential both for the mother and the children,” she said, dealing witli the psychology of the mother •at the Winter School for Health Visitors and School Nurses at Bedford College for Women, Regent’s Park. “ Every child from three vear old or even younger,” she said, “ can be taught to amuse itself for that time. Blackboard paper pinned on the wall or the floor and a box of chalk will keep most children happy and contented, while they never tire of putting spoons inside each other, hooking and unhooking fireirons, and playing with pots and pans.” Dr Hutchison said that the maternal instinct was often as harmful in exaggerated forms as it was helpful and necessary in a normal Estate. “It is essential that a mother should curb her maternal instinct so that her children can develop themselves. The parents must learn to stand aside and give their children room to grow along their own lines.”