RELIEF FOR PATIENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18661, 22 March 1935, Page 13

RELIEF FOR PATIENT

AFFLICTED FOR 10 YEARS DANCE AFTER A DRUG LONDON, March 11. A girl. who. for 10 years, had been unabfe to control her muscles, raise her arms or legs, or even sit up in bed, has been amazingly relieved by an experimental injection of prostigmin by Dr. Mary Walker, of St. Alfpge"'s Hospital, Greenwich. Dr. Walker has for long experimented with injections, of a certain drug to cure myasthenia gravis, an uncommon disease, afflicting people beiween 20 and 30, and causing almost complete paralysis, but she found that the drug was harmful. Accordingly she experimented with prostigmin which she administered to a woman of 28, who 20 minutes after tho injection raised her arms above her head, whereas for 10 years she had been, unable to lift, them horizontally. .She (hen got out of bed, stood erect, sat. down on her heels, and got up without the slightest difficulty. Afterwards she successfully danced to wireless without undue support from her partner. WEARS OFF University College research workers who wore superintending tho experiment; declare, it. was little short of a miracle. The patient next day, after a further injection, wont to a theatre. Sixteen similar cases have been successfully treated, but the effect of the drug weans off after live or sixhours. Research is being continued in tho hope of giving continual relief. The discovery is regarded, as important as insulin for diabetes or liver for pernicious anaemia. Myasthenia, gravis is an extreme weakness of the muscles, it was not a common disease.