Abstract
THE report of the Medical Research Council for the year 1936–37 recently issued* refers to the present unsatisfactory position in Great Britain of the medical treatment known as chemotherapy, which consists in the administration of chemical compounds synthesized in the laboratory and found to have specific actions on the infective organisms causing particular diseases in man and animals. The discovery and production of chemical compounds of value in this way have, the report states, “depended almost entirely on German science and industry, and still so depend”, although the subject has special significance for the British Empire with its immense responsibility in tropical countries. Malaria, for example, still holds the premier place as a cause of premature death and inefficiency in the Empire, and it is estimated that in India alone at least 100,000,000 persons suffer from fche disease each year, with a direct financial loss variously estimated at from £23,000,000 to £50,000,000 per annum, the indirect losses being still greater. The report then continues as follows:
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Medical Inventions and Discoveries. Nature 141, 705–707 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141705a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141705a0