[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Ssu,—The remarkable report of
the Medical Research Conned regarding treatment by ultra-violet ray therapy,. to wide]) you referred in your interesting article on March 23rd, is a document which ought not to be treated in the flippant and inconsequential manner which some critics are adopting, It is not for one to say that the sweeping generalizations in the report to the effect that artificial sunlight administered at a cost of 4s. (and a charge to the private patient of a guinea) supplies no more vitamin D than a pennyworth of cod liver oil, and that there is no present reason to believe that artificial light can do more in the way of skin stimulation than a good old-fashioned mustard plaster, are correct or otherwise.
But it does remain a fact that the leading experts have quite lately come to the conclusion that insistence upon violet-ray treatment and the neglect of administration through the mouth, is a completely mistaken policy. This is particularly important, since modern discovery has enabled the scientists, through the irradiation of ergosterol and the production of ostelin, to standardize the administration of vitamin D—an enormous step forward when it is remem. bered that even in foods so admittedly rich as milk, cream and butter, and also in cod liver oil, the vitamin D content differs widely.
Without at the moment committing oneself either to acceptance or rejection of the Medical Research Council's report in toto, those of us who have long been urging greater attention to dosage through the mouth, and thus' have wel- comed the discovery of ostelin, must hail this indication that the profession is beginning to endorse our argument.—I am,
Sir, &c., MARK HOWLEY. 1917 Club, 4 Gerrard Street, W. 1.
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