The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13 1923. TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1415, 13 October 1923, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13 1923. TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.

MORE than once the world has been startled by the discovery of a new means to treat consumption; but the cure of the disease still depends on the one thing—the individual. A discovery has been made by Professor George Dreyer, of Oxford, which may well revolutionise the treatment of tuberculosis and other diseases. We do not pretend to grasp his method in any detail; but, briefly, it consists in depriving the microbes of the protective armour that has enabled them to resist digestion. He divides microbes into two classes —“acid-fast” and “ non-acid-fast ” —and it is the first class (to which the tubercular germ belongs) which cannot, as was once confidently hoped, be treated successfully with vaccines. The professor proposes to abstract the fatty substances of microbes of the first class, to inject them into the body with the certainty that they will be digested, and thus stimulate the fluids of the body to produce substances fatal to the deadly microbe. This experiment he has performed successfully on animals, and the results gained from trials of the method by physicians in the English hospitals are promising. But from the very technicality and extreme expense of the whole affair the ultimate results must be far off.