4 JANUARY 1957, Page 29

CRISIS IN MEDICINE SIR,—Under the above heading Brian Inglis writes

in your issue of November 30: 'Recent wonder drugs have tended to go sour on the community after a few years' use.' That this view is shared by the medical profession is shown by the following quota- tion from the British Medical Journal of April 28, 1956: 'On the appearance of any new drug, an interest- ing cycle of events may often be observed. A trickle of favdurable reports develops into a stream, and the drug then becomes fashionable. Then the stream of favourable reports dries up, and is replaced by one of another kind. Therapeutic failures, undesirable side-effects, addictions and accidents claim attention. The drug falls into disrepute, and its use may even be abandoned altogether.'

Your contributor forecasts a crisis in medicine due to the enormous increase in mental disease. Is it not more than possible that there is a connection between the use of 'wonder drugs' and the huge consumption of other drugs under the Health Act and privately, and the growth of mental ailments?

There is also another aspect of the growth of mental disease. Mr. Inglis seems to assume that the mind in itself causes sickness. This may be so, but there is the old question as to which comes first, the egg or the chicken. There is nothing to rule out the possibility that the first cause of an illness is some physical imbalance, not amounting to diagnos- able disease, which operates on the mind or the nervous system. The effect would be that the patient is less able to withstand the worries of his existence.. and his troubled mind induces, say, duodenal ulcer. There is no doubt that some people are overcome by anxieties which would mean little to another. The physical imbalance referred to may he caused in the first instance by the constant taking of drugs, sup- posedly harmless, or it may be duo to feeding on devitalised or adulterated foods. An instance of this would be the ;use of agene in bread, lately discon- tinued after so many years of use. It is a matter of common knowledge that this substance caused hysteria in dogs, and so why not in humans? Unfor- tunately there are a large number of chemicals still used in the manufacture of foodstuffs, of which the effect on the human system is entirely unknown. Referring again to the effect of illness on the mind. any medical man will confirm that there are mans cases of certifiable lunacy which have been cured by an operation for some well-known malady such as cancer, or by the cure of another physical ailment. There is in fact much evidence that mental disease has sometimes its origin in physical malaise. There is none to prove that all mental illness is not con- nected with the physical mind and body being one whole.—Yours faithfully, Clifford Cottage, Clocienberg Road, Somerset West, CP., South A !rico. •

R. LCAILIER