Curing Tuberculosis

BY USE OF HIGH FREQUENCY ELECTRICAL CURRENTS.

A London Surgeon Gains Some Remarkable Results by Employing a Strength of 80,000 Volts — Patients Not Injured — There Are Doubts as to the Real Effect.

NEW YORK, Jan. 25. — Experiments are being made on a most elaborate scale in London with a modification of Tesla’s high frequency electrical currents, in the treatment of consumption. It is stated that some remarkable results have been achieved, says the London correspondent of the Herald. These experiments, for the most part, have been quietly conducted by Dr. T. J. Bokenham, an eminent West End surgeon, in the course of his private practice, but with the knowledge and approval of leading consumption specialists.

Dr. Bokenham has had fitted up a most elaborate apparatus for the production of electricity in the particular form in which it is used, the net result of which is that a current of 80,000 volts is produced, of such high frequency and administered in such small quantities that the consumptive patient may receive it without the slightest injury. The awe-inspiring force of this voltage may best be appreciated when it is remembered that only 500 volts are employed for driving trains on a railway. Yet the patient is not conscious of the enormous electrical pressure.

Dr. Bokenham’s experience is that in very bad cases of consumption the cough has been greatly reduced, night sweats have disappeared, the appetite has returned and there is a great gain in weight and general health. So that even if the consumption bacilli have not been destroyed it is certain that their virulence has been much decreased; that they have been brought under control, and that the patient has felt cured. A doubt entertained by phthisis specialists who do not question this temporary improvement, is whether it is anything but a mere exhilaration. Dr. Bokenham, however, has great faith in the future of the system.