SURGICAL SKILL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19808, 9 December 1938, Page 4

SURGICAL SKILL

ADVANCES IN BRITAIN GREAT DEVELOPMENTS TUBERCULOSIS TREATMENT X-RAYS FOR CANCER Important advances in surgical methods of treatment practised in some of the specialist hospitals of Britain were described by Dr. R. S. A. Graham, assistant medical superintendent and surgeon at the Waikato Hospital, on his return after spending seven months’ leave in England and Scotland. Dr. Graham referred particularly to the growing reliance placed on surgery in tho treatment of tuberculosis and to the improved methods of using X-iay equipment in cancer cases. Modern lung surgery and recent developments in anaesthesia were striking features of English practice which impressed Dr. Graham. Injected spinal anaesthetics were now in fairly wide use, he said, and, co a considerable degree, they were supplanting the normal general anaesthetics for a wide range of operations.

New Surgical Methods

“Surgery is being used now in a tremendous number of tuberculosis cases," he continued. “Temporary collapse of a lung results from the more common method of artificial pneumothorax, but a condition of permanent collapse is brought about by the new surgical methods. I was surprised not only at the seemingly poor risks upon which operations of this nature were performed, but also at the progress subsequently made by natients. Where a person was likely to suffer permanent incapacity from the disease, the risk of the operation was considered justified.”

As a result of the improvements to equipment and greater skill in the measuring of dosage, better . results were now being obtained with the use of X-rays in cancer treatment than a few years ago. It had been estimated that X-ray treatment would completely supplant the use of radium in cancer cases within about five years.

Social Security in Dominion

Dr. Graham mentioned that English doctors were keenly interested in New Zealand's social security scheme, but the general impression was that they were glad the experiment was being made in the Dominion and not in Great Britain. Serious doubts were held as to the possibility of the health scheme prov. ing a success, and the English experience of the panel system of medical attention suggested to one British doctor that New Zealand hospital accommodation would have to be doubled to cope with the new conditions.