A NEW MEDICAL ERA

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 164, 13 August 1929, Page 5

A NEW MEDICAL ERA

Per Press Association.

NOTED EXPERT ON ANAESTHETICS. ON A V1S1T TO NEW ZEALAND.

AUCKLAND, This day. Eul/illing part of his life's work, a crusade to join all the English-speak-ing peoples in a unilicd effort for the conquest Qf pain, Dr. E. II. McMechan, Secretary General of tbe International Anacsthesia ltesearcli Society, ancl world authority 011 annesthesia, arrived hv the Makura. He will remain in New Zealand for ahont tliree weeks and will then gi to Australia. to attend a medical conference in Sv-dney. He saicl in an intervicw that tlie new era of auae^thesia held the possibility of reducing liospital maintenanee costs and wiping out deficits. Gas-oxygen anacsthesia was so rapiclly induced, and recoverv was so rapid, tliat each patient's stay in liospital was so shortened that 25 per cent. more patients could be operatcd on 111 one liospital without addiug a becl or a nurse. "I11 maternity liospTtals, mothevs and tlieir bnbies coulcl he returned home on tlie sixtli or eightli day, instead of after the usual two weeks, ancl the newer gas era would tencl to wipe out a quarter of the maternal and infantde death rate. "Perhaps the most revolutionary field wliich the use of anaestheties and gases is cntering to-day is that of the treatmeut of diseases, apart from surgery." Dr. McMechan snicl that anaestliesia is heing used 111 the treatment of diseases caused hy germs, which clie in the air, and the use of compressed finis finding extencjed use in pneumonia, heart and kidnev7 diseases, and burns. "Tt is not even necessary to^ give oxygen by inlialation. It may 0 inflated under the loose areas of the skin with marked henefieial results. One London surgeon 1ms used this metliod in liis last 200 cases of burns, with remarkahly speedv healing," lie con clu cled .