ABOLISHING HUMAN SUFFERING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7701, 9 May 1903, Page 2

ABOLISHING HUMAN SUFFERING.

(Leslie's Weekly.)

The current year promises to be notable, among other things, for the important additions which ib will make to medical science and to curative agencies in general. While the wonderful work accomplished by Dr Lorenz may, perhaps, hardly fall within the class thus indicated, tbe stimulus which fche famous Viennese surgeon has given to effort along his particular line will undoubtedly help to make 'the year additionally memorable in the diminution of human suffering. Among the positive announcements of tlhe year thus far in tbe direotion of medical discoveries may be in-* eluded that of a serum cure for hay fever, made by Professor Dunbar, American head of tbe Hamburg Hygienic Institute. White hay fever i ; s not to be regarded as a fatal disease, it is a most distressing malady, and if anything can be devised to cure ib a great boon will be conferred upon the human raoe.

Of far greaber importance is the announcement that a probable cure bas been, discovered for blood-poisoning, a malady Whioh carries off a large number of people each year and which has hitherto resisted, in many cases, tlhe besb medical skill. Recent experiments with formalin in hospitals in New l^ork and elsewhere seem to dhow that this agency may be relied upon in many cases to aiares^.the process known as blood-poisoning and' effect, a permanent cure. If this proves to be the case,, it-will be, as one high medical .authority has truly said, "the most important contribution to medical scienoe in this ..Still later than these comes the news, in. a cable message to the New York "Sum" from Rome, thalb Professor Sormagin, of Pavia, has discovered the microbe of hydro* phobia. It has been the general impression thai* this disease was being successfully treated with the remedy devi»ed by Pro~

fes9or Koch, bub if this new disoovery leads to something still more efficacious the world wiil havo reason to be profoundly grateful. Hydrophobia is one of the most frightful maladies known to humanity, and whatever tends to diminish its ravages or to deprive ib of its terrors will be of untold benefit.

It seems nob unlikely thab the grealtesb and most important contributions which science shall make to the welfare of the world in tho present century will be along the lilies thus indicated, in discoveries that shall reduce the sum. of human suffering and prolong tbe average duration of human life. If we nlay nofc hope, as a Chicago professor bas asserted, that we shall yeb be able to airresfc the progress of old age and postpone the coming of the " grim messiemger" to an indefinite period, it is quite within the bounds of possibility tha* tbe average duration of human life may yeti be increased many fold. It. haa now been raised, as recent statistics sshotw t about seven years in tbe las'b half century, and if that rate keeps on it only needs a little arithmetic to show tbat in the course of a few centuries, centenarians! will be as plenty as man of twenty-five or thirty years are at the present time. Whether this prolongation of human life will be an unmixed blessing to the race is another question. If life is worth living at all, it would seem) to ba warfih. living ab least a hundred years as well as forty or fifty.