Oxygen

Despite my ineptitude over chemistry (in one end of year exam at school I could answer none of the questions. I was given one mark out of 50 for spelling my name correctly!) I have long known that oxygen is vital to human life. It does, after all, form part of the air that we breathe. All the same, it is only quite recently that I have come to appreciate some of the seemingly miraculous qualities of this gas.

I have a cousin who suffers from multiple sclerosis and, several years ago, she regularly attended her nearest MS treatment centre where she would spend an hour in what can only be described as a tank akin to a diving bell. Here she would receive a high dose of oxygen. Although there is no cure for MS, this high dosage oxygen treatment has been found to alleviate some of the problems associated with the condition.

This was brought to mind, oh, it must be three years ago now. There is an MS treatment centre in a nearby town, the only one is Sussex. Like all the other such centres across the country, this is a charity and receives no state funding: none of the centres are part of the National Health Service. Our local centre had a financial problem which came to the attention of Brighton Lions Club. We quickly offered help, both financial (if it should prove necessary) and practical, in suggesting a way out of the problem they had. The suggestion proved successful so our money was not needed at that time. However, it soon was as the centre had plans for extending and refurbishing. As I was then president of Brighton Lions I had the honour of making the presentation. With the other Lions who attended, I was given a tour of the centre, including the diving bell. The centre manager explained that the bell was used for more than MS sufferers: for example, professional footballers from Brighton & Hove Albion received high dosage oxygen treatment after injury and it was believed that this speeded up their recovery. I emntioned that my wife had recently been diagnosed as suffering from a condition known as corticobasal degeneration. Did the manager think she might benefit? He did. The Old Bat agreed to a series of trial treatments and has been going back once a week ever since.

The range of illnesses and conditions that can be alleviated by this treatment is quite amazing, although many in the medical profession are highly sceptical. MS (of course), Alzheimer's, autism, any form of injury, surgery: the list is quite astonishing.

Now, I'm not averse to taking drugs when I really need them. I don't much like stuffing man-made chemicals into my body and put off doing so as long as I reasonably can in the hope that nature will provide a cure, but I do think we have gone too far in rejecting nature's bounty. Yes, I do mean homeopathic medicine. The example of the oxygen tank, which is pooh-poohed even by MS specialists, is a good example.