New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-03
Tile TURERCLE P1RASITE.

Professor Tyndal's letter on the nature Of
| tubercular disease, which is reprinted on an
| other page from The Times LOndon), is an I'M
portant contribution to medical science. 1t
embodies the results not of his own but OF DIT.
Koch's mastery investigations which have
been conducted in Berlin in relation to the
| deadliest of modern diseases. This German
investigator, having successfully traced a
parasite through all its stages of development
| in splenic fever, has applied the same method
of study to the great class of tubercular dis
eases. He finds that consumption of the lungs
and cognate diseases of the liver kidney and
intestnes are caused by the presence in the
| blood of a living parasite analogous to that
| which is developed in intermittent and other
fevers In the centre of the tubercle cell is the
microscopic organism which has created it..
The tubercle is in fact infested with rod-snaped
parasites which do not depend upon any virus
imbedded in the diseased organ DR.. Koch,
having discovered these organisms, cultivated
them artiicially, and after developing several
generations of them without the Intervention
of disease, introduced them into the blood of
healthy guinea pigs, cats, rabbits and other
animals. The result in every was the re-
production of the parasite and the rapid devel-
opment of tubercular disease. This was prac-
teal demonstration of his theory that tuber
cular disease is due to the presence and repro
duction of the bacillus, and that the parasite
does not depend on diseased condition of the
| organ.
While DR.. Koch has not been the first inves-
tieator to identify pulmonary consumption
with ordinary eruptive fevers, or even to attrlb-
ute the infective property of tubercular dis
ease to the presence of microscopic organisms,
he has made tenable theory out of what was
at best an ingenious surmise. He has found
| the disease producing bacillus and cultivated
| it, not only from diseased lungs but even from
matter expectorated by consumptivc patients,
and has proved that tubercle can be cOmmuni-
Gated by incubation. Professor Tyndall con-
fines his attention to the scientific results of the
Germans Investigations, and makes no attempt
to anticipate the practical benefits which may
be derived from the development of this new
theory of tubercular disease DR.. Koch has
not succeeded so far in producing by cultiya-
ton mild form of the disease. Although he
has bred artifcially as many as eight genera
tiOns of the parasite, the effects of publication
were not apparent. In the eighth generation,
as in the first, decided and in most cases viru-
| lent tubercular disease was the result OF inOcu
lation. Nevertheless it is a well-established
fact that parasites which produce analogous
diseases in animals and in the human system
can be modified by cultivation until they finally
produce mild form of those diseases, and in
this way protection may be afforded against
vrulent conditions. The analogies of diseases
imply that it may be possible to procure from
guinea pigs or rabbits an effective inoculant
against consumption, precisely as smallpox
germs are cultivated in the COW or splenic
fever germs in sheep. 1t is the possibility of
converting the occupant of tubercle cell into
a prophylactic or preventive agent that lends
importance to these interesting experiments.
This possibility is not outlined in Professor
Tyndalrs letter, but it may readily be inferred
from the vigorous rebuke which he admins
tiers to the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. in his closing
paragraph. In the extract which we print
from The Medical NetrS this possibility is, how
ever, distinctly set forth as the hoped for re-
suit of KOch's researches.