LIME. DUST THERAPY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 245, 17 October 1939, Page 3

LIME. DUST THERAPY

r pHE astounding tact that workers in the lime industry seldom or almost never suffer from tuberculosis may not be generally known, writes Professor Ludwig Fahn-Wiesbaden in Volk and Welt. Hanover. But experience has shown that the inhalation of lime dust reduces the incidence of lung diseases. And though the exploitation of this knowledge is only gradually coming into popular effect, the possibilities of lime dust therapy were discussed as long as fifty years ago. About the beginning of the century I sent inquiri *s about the subject to various people in a position to know the facts The ownci of a plastering works informed me that no one in his employ was afflicted with tuberculosis. A stonecutter who had been active in his vocation for half a century, and had in that time educated over 100

young apprentices to the trade, wrote me in the same vein. Pale, sickly, emaciated youths, he said, even those whose condition was due to heredity, became perfectly healthy again after some years of apprenticeship. This man’s information applied to more than 500 workers. Equally significant was his statement that stone-cutters who worked with water (thus precluding the creation of lime dust) remained sickly. The evidence of statistics is not less striking. Numerous bulletins published by the owners and directors of large lime works, together with doctors' figures, substantiate our theory. One such report reads: "In a period of ten years, of the 432 cases of illness among the workers in our plant not one was a case of tuberculosis, inflammation of the

I and only three were of acute bronchial catarrh. Thus the wholly favourable therapeutic effects of the inhalation of lime dust are patent. | The question now ari.-rs: in what | manner, and in what composition, can j the lime dust be most effectively given ( to the patient. A good many years of experimentation and research were necessary before the Lex-Zehen method was discovered and proven sati. fac'toi y. i It consisted of a mixture of sulphur and calcium which revealed both curative and preventive properties. It has been used in German sanatoria v ilh good results. Two important facts deserve empha: is: fust, there never, according to X-ray observation, been a case of "dust-lung" Hi a person who has once been cured by thi. method; and second, the therapy can be carried on under a doctors on'er • i’hout disturbing ones daily occupation