Page 2 Advertisements Column 1

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7417, 31 May 1902, Page 2

(Chambers' s Journal.) It is the fashion just now on .tn& Continent to accuse us, as a nation, of falling behind in the race. Neither -with our heads nor yet with bur hands do we work so well as we used to do, we are roundly, told on all occasions. We are all more or less in a state of decadence, if our foreign critics are to be relied on; but none of us Have fallen quite so low, it seems, bb those of us who are doctors. Rightly or wrongly, the opinion certainly prevails abroad that English medical men are not now { as they were in former days, the first in the world } that they are in many respects inferior not only to tim Frenchman and the German, but even to the Austrian and the Bane. ~ The English doctors are openly scoffed at in France and Germany for their unscientificmethods and antediluvian ways; they are taunted with having gone to sleep some twenty or more years ago, and with having never learnt anything since. And as' a proof tihat this is the case — one proof among a legion — foreign medical men point to the fact that, although more than ten years have now elapsed since Dr Finsen made the discovery on which' his new treatment for small-pox is founded, that treatment has never yet had a trial in England. It is even asserted that the cure for lupus, which Dr Finsen, also discovered, would not have been tried in Britain for many years to come . had not Queen Alexandra- taken the initiative by providing the London. Hospital with the necessary apparatus. That the new treatment for small-pox should not yet have been tried in this country is certainly remarkable, the more bo seeing that it has already been tested in almost every country in Europe— including Ireland — and always with success. Moreover, the experiment would involve an expenditure of only a few shillings, and no risk whatever; for even those who have least faith in Dr Finsen's system, of treatment admit that, if it does no good to the patients to whom it is applied^it cannot possibly do them any harm. They admit, too — and for women, at any rate, thas is A MATTER OF PARAMOUNT XMPOBTANCB — that it" may and probably does prevent disfigurement. Then the treatment _ has another great recommendation: it is so simple that even the " man in the street " can understand its why and wherefore ; and it can. be carried out by any fairly intelligent person, even though quite untrained in nursing, providing he or sue be willing to take a certain amount of trouble and do exactly as ordered. It can be adopted in any little cottage home juet as well as in a great hospital, in the wilds of Cumberland just as easily as in London. Thais any country practitioner may, if he chooses, give the red-room cure a trial, and judge for. himself as to its merits or its defect*. If, in a rural district beyond the reach of a hospital, a doctor should find himself called upon to cope'with a case of small-pox, t&e first thing to be done, if he wishes to try the effect of the Finsen treatment on his patient, would be to become temporarily an upholsterer. The sick-room must, without a moment's delay, be drapedi entirely with iei. Bed curtains must be hung be- J fore the windows, before the doors, before every little crevice through which' a ray of light could possibly penetrate ; even the doors and windows of the passage or corridor^into which the door of the sick-room opens must all have their red curtains; and; any lamp ' or candle brought within range of the patient must also be covered with a thick red shade. In fact,'42ie place must be transformed into a "red! rooms" and when once.it is red, and the nurse has been made to realise the importance of keeping it red, the doctor's chief work is done so far as the experiment is concerned. All that remains for him to do it to watch ■his patient, and, as the necessity arises, •to give- the remedies usually prescribed ia : Bucn. oases. ' - --.:••• £•-*:.>,* Dr Finsen holds that no ray of light, should ever be allowed to fall on* a smallpox patient unless it has passed through something reoVj and, his ''cure" consists in confining sufferers ft om this disease in rooms from which all light, excepting red light, is carefully excluded. This is . / THE BEGINNING AN© END OF tA^'V ■. .:■.-.. -•- V TREATMENT '/ . ' he recommends ; and it certainly would* be difficult to conceive of anything more simple. Its very simplicity, indeed, Is probably one of the reasons why it has not found acceptance among us ; for we are all more or less Naamans. Still, simple though it be, its efficacy can no longer be doubted; for in no single case where it has been tried — and it has been tried in hundreds of caseshas the patient died; in no single case has the- patient had the disease severely, cor has it disfigured him. This is a point on which Continental doctors are practically all agreed. \ Dr Finsen has scientific reasons for his cure ; it was after years of ceaseless work —hard study, minute investigations, experiments without end — Ufett he made the discovery oh which it is Sounded. Before he turned his attention to the subject it was already well known that light is injurious to small-pox patients. Again and again the fact had been established that in. cases of small-pox light acts as an irritant ; that it increases the inflammation of the skin and causes suppuration, thus adding, of course, to the fever attendant on the disease. The experiment had also been tried repeatedly of keeping small-pox patients in dark rooms; but this had always proved a failure, as the depression entailed by being forced to pass their days in darkness did nore harm to the patients mentally than their SECURITY I'ROM THE IRRITATING EFFECTS OF LIGHT did them good physically. What Dr Finseik set himseix to do t therefore, was to deviso some means of guarding 'persons having email-pox from the injurious action of light without entirely depriving them of light. In the course of his investigations he discovered — and an all-important discovery it has proved — that the harm done in such cases, is done not by light, but by certain of the rays that go to make up light 9 that it is not light itself that acts as an. irritant, in fact, but only the chemical rayain lightthat is the blue, violet and ultra-violet rays. By a series of experiments he obtained proof that if the chemical rays of light are intercepted, the remaining rays are innocuous, and that a small-pox patient maybe exposed to tnem the whole day long without evil consequences. Thus 4 instead of excluding all lignt from the room in which the patient is lying, it is tie. chemical rays alone that need to, be excluded. If this be done the sufferer is practically secure f rom all danger of having the disease severely. Dr Finsen lost no time in demonstrating that this can be accomplished quite easiiy ; for, as blue, violet and. ultra-violet fays of light cannot pass through anything red, they cannot,, of course, enter a red room. Once in a red room, therefore, the patient is SAFE FROM THEIR £ ERNICIO'DS INFLUENCE. Ib is interesting to not© that' already in England in the fourteenth century the merits of the red cure — as we call it — for ] smail-pox were known. John, Gaddesden, a physician, bonn about 1280, v attended a son of Edward I. in the small-pox, wrapped him in scarlet cloth, in a beds and room with scarlet hangings. ~ The mother of Lady Pleasance Smith (1175-1811) was treated for small-pox by being wrapped in scarlet flannel and kept in a heated room without fresh air. Certain Italian doctors used to prescribe for their patients precisely the same treatment as Dr Finsen prescribes for his— the red-room treatment. "This is the more curious as it is extremely improbable that these doctors were acquainted with the scientific facts on which' it is based. So far as is known, indeed, they gave no reason whatever, although no doubt they " had one, for insisting that their patients should at the first sign. of the fell disease betake themselves to red rooms. The consequence was, they were accused) of being-ia league . with the devil, and of working their cures ,