DeSoto times. (Hernando, Miss.) 1879-1898, 1890-10-16
WAR BETWEEN MICROBES.
A Startling Theory Advanced by Note
Russian Physician.

A Startling Theory Advanced by Notice
Russian Physician.
The first impression of the reader who
learns that a Russian doctor is curing
diphther.a by inoculating tho patient
with eryspelaS is that joke is being
perpetrated The story sounds like that
Eastern tale of tyrant who put out the
eyes of his subjects when they went
lame, on the theory that tho greater
suffering would relieve the lesser. But
in these days of bacteriology it is un-
safe to deride any new theory because
it does not harmonize with preconceiyed
notions. Dr. Batchinsky says that be-
tween the mcrobe of diphtheria and the
microbe of erysipelas there is an antag.
onism, sort of irrepressible conflict
Where one flourishes the other perishes,
and as the erysipelas microbe is the
more powerful of the two it is the diph-
liberia microbe that goes to the wall.
Whether microbe eats miCrobe, or the
higher bred insect dies of disgust at the
appearance on the scene of his meaner
fellow-creature, does not appear. All
that he AYERS is that when he inocu-
lated diphtheritic patient with the
poison of the erysipelas microbe the
diphtheria gradually disappeared and
the artificial erysipolas yielded readily
to the proper remedies. In this way he
is said to have cured number of pa
tients, and he advises his confreres to
try it whenever they have severe case
of diphtheria. We need hardly re-
mark that the faculty will require the
newspaper reports of DR.. Batchinsky'S S
performances to be confirmed before
they adopt his practice. 1t is worth
looking into. Even the stouteSt be-
levers in the bacterial theory admit
that they are powerless to combat the
bacillus-to beard the lion in his den,
the Douglas in his hall, When DR..
Koch discovered, as he believed, the
bacillus Of consumption people rejoiCed,
because they reckoned that now the
enemy was located it would be easy to
exterminate him. But this proved i'm
practicable. Any gas that was power
full enough to destroy the insect was
pretty sure to destroy the patient as
well. Quite a number of interesting
experiments were made with various
carbureted gases, but no physician was
bold enough to introduce them into the
lungs in the face of warnings that the
attempt would be fatal Thus Dr..
Koch's discovery left matters pretty
much where they wore But if this Rus
sian medico has really discovered a
bacillus that feeds upon other bacilli
or exterminates them as the white man
has extcrminatcd the Indian, by the
mere force of contact, the faculty should
surely test the discovery. Perhaps the
erysipelas bacillus may be as fatal to
the microbe of consumption as he is to
tho microbe of diphthera. Perhaps he
may cultivate an appetite for other dis
ease germs. If so, even allopaths will
not despise this new application of the
rule simili0 sMtHJuS. AS a matter of
principle there would be nothing new
in the discovery. Almost all med
icines are poisons. That which saves
life in one dose causes death in another
There is no more useful medicine in the
modern pharmacop9ta than arsenic:
yet three out of five women who poison
themselves do so with arsenic. Strych-
nine is a terrible poison, but nux vomca
is a most valuable drug. In Greece
criminals were some times forced to take
their own lives by drinking a cup Of
hellebore; we in our day cure many dis
eases of the stomach with veratrum, If
drug which destroys life under given
conditions saves it in others, why may
not disease germ which is noxious in
one set of circumstances prove benefiC-
ial when the circumstances are changed
and the exhibition of the germ regulated
by scientific principles? The last word
has not been said in bacteriology
Physicians who deride it say that its
professors mistake the effect for the
cause, and ascribe disease to animal or
CARNATIONS which proceed from the dis
ease itself. 1t may be so, But the lay
world remembers that the progenitors
of these same physicians denied the cir
culation of the blood to the last day of
their lives. We owe to Koch and his
co-worllers the knowledge of the fact Of
the existence of microbes; what use
they may be put to remains yet to be
discovered. San Francisco Call