TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21052, 2 March 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Culture and Destruction “Four years ago, on Christmas Day, 1935, Germany, through the skill of her chemists and scientists, gave to the world a life-giving remedy. On that Christmas Day, the first of the prontosil group of drugs was patented. From its discovery the whole sulphanilamide group, which has been so potent in overcoming serious germ infections, is derived. How many lives have been saved throughout the world as a result! One by one many of our most dreaded diseases have become curable. Puerperal fever, of which we were used to say: ‘There is no hope for these patients,’ miraculously abates; fever falls, pulses slow down and flushed, dry, or profusely sweating skins regain their normal healthy condition in the course of a few hours. Cerebro-spinal and septic meningitis, pneumonia and other diseases are cut short and cured in an almost unbelievable manner. Such was Germany's contribution to safe living in the world of medicine. Today Germany's latest gift to the civilised world is the destruction and not the conservation of life. It seems pitiful that the progress of scienca should be such a failure.' I —The Nursing Times.