Sent from Sir Charles Hubert Bond
9 Dec 1930
Description:

‘The Chairman.

I have given careful consideration to this matter and to make sure of my facts and of the position I paid a visit when in the neighbourhood on the 5th instant to Horton Mental Hospital and saw Lt. Col. J.R. Lord.

As you say, the malarial treatment of general paralysis has largely gone beyond the experimental stage. I am afraid however that in some areas the position can scarcely be said even to have reached the experimental stage; for instance there are about 20 of the 98 Mental Hospitals that are still without a laboratory; and on more than one occasion I have found that a strong recommendation to use malarial therapy is a useful lever to get a laboratory installed and started. Then apart from the existence or absence of a laboratory, there are still a number of Institutions at which malarial treatment does not seem to be given; thus there was a nil return re 1929 from 42 of the County and Borough Mental Hospitals, from 9 of the 14 Registered Hospitals, and from 49 of the 54 Licensed Houses. So you see there is a pretty considerable field in which we must still peg away. I feel it is worse than useless to exert too much pressure because, if there is not an awakened desire to undertake the treatment, its results may prove poor and even dangerous and bring about a certain amount of disrepute to it. For instance, at Horton, which has caught up the enthusiasm for this line of treatment that in this country arose at Whittingham, a death while the patient is under malarial treatment is practically unknown. The Laboratory and the excellent arrangements set up at Horton are to my mind doing a piece of work that fairly could be called National; one might almost say International; because besides students attending there from this country to watch the modus operandi of the treatment, students sent by the League of Nations also attend for the same purpose. It is of course, Col. Lord’s colleagues and their Technical Assistants, that, with the assistance afforded by the Ministry, actually carry out the work; but, while he himself makes no claim to credit in the matter, I am much impressed by the good service which Lord has rendered, and is still giving, in this work. Without his enthusiasm and pride in the centre which, with the consent of his Committee he has established at Horton, and without the watchful eye he keeps over it and his determination to see that the facilities are thoroughly maintained, this highly useful centre would never have come about.

It is perhaps a little outside my province to say so; but it does seem to me that the Ministry would be wise, through us as agents and through Col. James, to keep a watch and a hold – for the sake of the public health – as long as they can on this line of treatment.

I greatly hope that the Treasury may be persuaded to continue the present arrangement.

Hubert Bond. 9th December 1930.’