2 FEBRUARY 1962, Page 11

SIR,—What quaint views Charles Gibbs-Smith expresses about the attitude of

the medical profes- sion to Captain W. P. Knowles's pulmonary panacea.

In the •field of medical treatment it is for the innovator himself to produce the initial scientific evidence in support of his views; let us have the results of properly controlled clinical trials (which will be a deal less simple than your writer supposes) rather than vague claims of `thousands of complete cures'—even gynmcologists whose names ,are house- hold words may be as prone to suggestion as more ordinary mortals.

Let Captain Knowles, then, produce his results, and if they show a statistically significant superiority over other methods of treatment, doubtless clinicians and physiologists will undertake further and more extensive investigations.

D. C. WILKINS