LEPROSY PATIENTS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1929, Page 7

LEPROSY PATIENTS

CHAULMOOGRA TREATMENT. Dr. R. J. Millard, medical superintendent of the Coast Hospital, New South Wales, recently' expressed the opinion that American doctors have claimed far •too much for chaulmoogra oil, which, with its derivatives, is used in the treatment of leprosy. Cases have been known, ho said, where discharged patients have failed to report for examination and have disappeared for years. .On being found, they have had to be interned again in the lazaret, because the disease in the meantime made its reappearance. In order to guard against such happenings in New South Wales the Board of Health strictly insists on the regular examination of even those patients who have been discharged after undergoing a course of chaulmoogra oil.

Dr. Millard also stated that in his experience the use of the phrase “complete cure” was often too' loosely - used. Leper

patients at the Coast Hospital, for instance, reading of “complete cures,” naturally wanted to know why they are not being cured completely. Chaulmoogra oil, or the active agent contained in it, is used systematically at the Coast Hospital, with the result that two patients, on an average, are released every year on parole. They are not released as cured. They have to report for further examination and

treatment every three or six months. Far from being a recent discovery, Dr. Millard explained, chaulmoogra oil has been in use for over 100 years. For many years it was given by mouth to the patients and the effect was nauseating. About ten years’ analysis revealed the active agent in the oil and this is

now administered hypodermically and also in capsule form. Even when the capsules are swallowed the patients experience great discomfort, but the -’O- - arc so encouraging that the sufferers never fail to persevere with the treatment. Elaborate tests of chaulmoogra oil were conducted at Honolulu, and many complete cures were reported. When D". Millard, however, through the courtesy of the Honolulu authorities, secured supplies from them, the results obtained among local patients, he says, did not corroborate the claims made for the treatment.