SPAHLINGER SERUM

Southland Times, Issue 19293, 11 July 1924, Page 5

SPAHLINGER SERUM

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. BRITISH GOVERNMENTS ACTION. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N2. Cable Association.) LONDON, July 9. In the House of Commons, in reply to a question, Mr John Wheatley (Minister of Health) said that the result of the Ministiy of Health’s inquiries did not enable him to pronounce an opinion on the efficiency of M. Spahlinger’s treatment; but the result of the inquiry was sufficient to indicate the advisability of scientific investigation when an adequate supply of serum was forthcoming. He had personally pressed M. Spahlinger for the formula for the preparation of the serum, but he had not been able to obtain it. Dr. Leonard Williams is contributing a series of articles to the Daily Mail on the Spahlinger treatment of consumption. He tells how M. Spahlinger laid his cards on the table. Dr. Thomas Watts, M.P. for the Withington Division of Manchester; Dr. Henry Jackson the Mayor of Wandsworth, and I spent a long and interesting day at M. Spahlinger’s laboratory. These two responsible public men were present while he exposed to us the whole theory and practice, the complete science and art, of the preparation of his remedies. At the close of the seance he invited us to crossexamine him. There was no cross-exam-ination. He had put all his cards on the table, and he had arranged them and then played them for our edification. His cards are quite ordinary cards, but they are extraordinarily well arranged, and they are played in a manner which is simply mas teriy. So much then for the question of secrecy. There is no secret, for a secret which is known to other people, if not exactly a “secret de Polichinelle” is, at any rate, in the nature of a Cabinet secret which will be made public in due course. Such a measure of secrecy as is still maintained is maintained purely in the public interest; that is. to prevent unscrupulous persons from exploiting worthless nostrums said to have been made according to the Spahlinger methods. On our way back from the laboratory my distinguished companions agreed that, although the process is very complicated, the underlying principles seem so simple, so obvious, indeed, that the only surprising thing is that no one else has ever thought of them. . . Spahlinger now opens up a new vista, offers new courage, inspires fresh hope. And this he does not by a miracle nor any dramatic gesture, but by laboriously erecting a superstructure upon foundations which have been well and truly laid by the great bacteriologists of the past. His work is not a revolution; it is merely a painstaking evolution.