LS THE WHITE PLAGUE CONQUERED?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19442, 30 October 1925, Page 10

LS THE WHITE PLAGUE CONQUERED?

(By David Masters in “Tit-Bits,”' ; London, August 15, 1925.) ' That a man weighed down by finani cial burdens could calmly refuse an of- | for of a quarter of a million pounds, with the additional certainty that he would become a millionaire many times over, seems almost incredible in these days of Mammon worship.

Yet there is in London .at the time of writing a man who has done this. That man is M. Sphlinger, the tist who has devoted the best years of his life and spent his whole fortune in his fight against tuberculosis Once the head of a powerful syndicate, obsessed with the idea that no one could withstand the power of money, tried to tempt him by putting into his hand £lOO,OOO. Sphalinger refused it. When I asked the scientist why he had not accepted tho offer, he replied: “How could 1? 1 did not take up my work for personal gain, but in order to help humanity.” Ho does not think it right to make money out of tho sufferings of other people. If he allowed his treatment to be commercialized, it would naturally be sold for profit, and this would be the very negation of his ideal. But he cannot run his laboratory without money, and herein lies tho trouble. Genius and Modesty. It is several years since rumours of the wonderful work being done in Geneva by Spahlinger impelled me to investigate matters on tho spot. The rumours were outstripped by tho reality. The genius of the scientist was obvious. I went to Switzerland as an unbeliever prepared for disappointment. Cures for consumption in the past have been as plentiful as the flowers in the spring, and like the spring flowers they have perished, and with them the hopes of sufferers. What I saw made me ponder. There sprang to my mind the one question that would prove to me whether the Spahlinger treatment was to save humanity or to go the way of tho other failures. “Has he treated tuberculosis guinea-pigs?” Scientists know that the tuberculosis guinea-pig must die. No power on earth has hitherto been known to save it. Yet the Spahlinger treatment achieved this miracle a dozen years and more .ago. 1 discovered that Dr. Lardy cured fifteen out of seventeen in 1912 by using the treatmenti

No man of genius who has achieved so much could be more modest than Spahlinger. He utterly refuses to make any claims at all about his treatment. “Do you think you have discovered the cure for consumption?” I have asked him more than once. “That is a. question for the doctors who have used the treatment and investigated the results,’’ he says. Birth of the Idea. The doctors are not so reticent. Dr. Stephani, the Swiss specialist, who has used the treatment for over 300 cases, has told me emphatically, several times, that “the complete Spahlinger treatment is the cure for tuberculosis.” Dr. Lardy, who treated the first human beings, goes so far as to say that “so Jong as a consumptive is alive there is every chance of tho complete Spahlinger treatment restoring him to health.”

J was present in Geneva recently when the Commission of Medical Members of Parliament were investigating the treatment, and their report proves that they are id full accord as to the great value of Spahlinger’s discovery. My own investigations, spread over some years, have proved to me that the Swiss scientist has found the cure for the dread disease of consumption. It was no accident that set him working on the right lines, but the clarity of a logical mind and his powers of deduction. He was wondering how it was that, although we could cultivate the germs of tuberculosis in the laboratory, the results attained with the products of these cultures were so very disappointing. He pondered over the subject and found himself thinking that the octopus, when it is danger, ejects an inky fluid to cloud the water and enable it to escape from its enemies. Instantly his mind leapt to the conclusion that the germs might act in a similar manner; that when they were attacked by the forces of the body they might counter-attack by throwing off poisons that are only given when the germs are in danger. On that idea his treatment was founded.

It has taken him years and years to work out his idea. Many a time he has been almost swamped by the difficulties, but he has set his teeth and surmounted them. Practically all the time he has risked his life. Many a time he has been handling flasks containing enough germs to wipe out London, and they have broken in his hands! Luckily he has escaped. The Horse’s Part

For years he was working practically all night, snatching only an hour or two of sleep. He has been nearly frozen stiff in the course of his work. The failure of the water supply has swept away years of endeavour; the failure of the electric current has done similar harm. Once a year’s work was ruined by an impurity in the glass of which the flasks used for cultivating the germs were made; two or three weeks ago much valuable time and work were lost because an assistant left a flask full of toxins exposed to the light. The difficulties that Spahlinger aas overcome are almost unbelievable. But over them all he has triumphed. He has been called chalatan and quack. The man who has refused fortunes has even been accused of being a mere money-grabber. lie has just let his detractors talk and pursued his work. Until Spahlinger’s genius lighted the way, we regarded the disease as being due to one poison, but that idea no longer holds. From the germs of tuberculosis which cause different forms of the disease he has isolated twenty-two different poisons. When one of these poisons is injected in accordance with his method into a horse, the horse produces an anti-toxin, which is something that neutralizes the poison. By injecting the twenty-two toxins into twentytwo different horses, he obtains in the course of time his complete serum made of a mixture of all his anti-toxins. This may be used in any form of tuberculosis, whether of the lungs or bones or skin. All his complete serum was used up some years ago in treating cases, and owing to financial difficulties he now has only seven of his antitoxins. Startling Results. I have seen doctor after doctor -?.x- -) press astonishment at the wonderful 1 cures effected by the treatment. Of one case a Swiss doctor said to a mother: “I can do no good by coming back. Your sou will only last three days.’ ’ The mother went weeping to Spahlinger, who determined to make a fight for the man’s life. 1 ‘ If you cure hipi, I will be content to wash the floors of your laboratory,” a Harley Street specialist said. The man was so ill that they could not even take X-ray photographs of his chest. That was eleven years ago. Less than a month ago I was chatting with that same man. He is as fit and well as I am. Altogether about 600 people have been treated with the Spahlingcr remedies. These cases, it must be remembered, were mainly of the worst possible type, that had tried every other known treatment in vain. Yet with I his incomplete treatment four out of live cases have been restored to health. The complete treatment would undoubtedly have yielded even more remarkable results. No wonder the doctors marvel. Spahlinger has proved himself to be one of the outstanding men of our time.