INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 275, 19 November 1937, Page 3

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

MINISTER’S DEFENCE REFERENCE TO B.M.A. CRITICISM SYDNEY, Nov. 17. Defending Sister Kenny’s infantile paralysis methods, the Federal Minister of Health, the Hon. W. M. Hughes, declared: “The British Medical Association’s criticism of Sister Kenny’s treatment is unconvincing, illogical and not free from inaccuracies.” Mr. Hughes pointed out that the British Medical Association’s assertion that “The only reports on Sister Kenny’s treatment have been unfavourable” is entirely opposed to the facts revealed by the Medical Committee of the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, where clinic cases were showing marked improvement. Mr. Hughes emphasises that Sister Kenny’s patients had been those whom ordinary conventional methods had not benefited. The Minister then adds “Here is a disease which the medical profession can neither prevent nor cure, yet it adopts the amazing attitude that this is not a time for experimentation. My view is that if Sister Kenny’s methods promise—as results seem to show—better results than the conventional methods, they should be adopted and applied to all cases from the inception of the disease.”