Morning journal and courier., 1890-09-10
A MrCRoBE WAR.
The Erysipelas DIicrobe a Deadly Enemy of the Diphtherta Mfcrobe.

The Erysipelas Microbe a Deadly
 Enemy of the Diphtherta Mfcrobe.
 From the San Francisco Call.l
 The first impression of the reader who learns that a Russian doctor is curing diphtheria by inoculating the patient with erysipelas is that joke is being perpe- trated. The story sounds like the Eastern tale of tyrant who put out the eyes of his subjects when they went lame, on the theory that the greater suffering would relieve the lesser. Rut in these days of bacteriology it is unsafe to deride any new theory because it does not harmonize with preconceived notions. Dr. Batchin- sky says that between the microbe of diphtheria and the microbe of erysipelas there is an antagonism, a sort of irrepress- ible conflict. Where one fourishes the other perishes, end as the erysipelas mi crobe is the more powerful of the two it is the diphtt eria 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 diphtheric patient with the poison of the erysipelas microbe the diphtheria gradually disappears and the artificial erysipelas yields readily to the proper remedies. In this way he is said to have cured a number of patients, and he ad- vises his confreres to try it whenever they have a severe case of diphtheria- We need hardly remark that the faculty will require the newspaper reports of Dr. Bat chinsky's performances to be confined be- fore they adopt his practice. It is worth looking into. Even the stoutest believers in the bacterial theory admit that they are powerless to cambat 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 rejo-ced, because they reckoned that now that the enemy was located it | would be easy to exterminate him. But this proved impracticable Any gas that was powerful enough to destroy the insect was pretty sure to destroy the patient a. well. Quite number of interesting ex periments were made with varions carbrr eted gases, but no physician was bolC enough to introduce them into the lun6 in the face of warnings that the attemp | would be fatal. Thus Dr. koch's discov cry left matters pretty much where the, | were. But if this Russian medico ha ! TttllN ulsCONtIcu d luhl IctsDS uDOl other bacill or exterminatss them as tn ! white man has exterminated the Indian | by the mere force of contact, the facultr [ should surely test the discovery. Perhap l the erysipelas bacillus may be as fatal | I to the microbe of consumption as he to the microbe of diphtheria. Perhaps | may cultivate an appetite for other diseas
 germs. If so, even allopaths will not de
 spise this new application of the rul
 similia similibus. As matter of princi | pie there would be nothing new in the dis | covory Almost all medicines are poisons That which saves life in one dose cause | death in another. There is no more usefu medicine in the modern pharmacopea thai | arsenic; yet three out of five women win | poison themselves do so with arsenic Strychnine is terrible poison, but nu, | vomica is most valuable drug. h | Greece criminals were sometimes forced t.
 take their own lives by drinking a cup O | hellebore; we in our day cure many dis
 eases of the stomach with veratrum. If
 drug which destroys life under given con
 ditions saves it in others why may not
 disease germ which is noxious in one SC of circumstances prove beneficial when th'
 circumstances are changed and the exhibi | tion of the germ regulated by scientif' principless The last word has not beel
 said in bacteriology. Physicians who de
 ride it say that it's professors mistake tn
 effect for the cause, and ascribe disease t
 animal organizations which proceed iron
 the disease itself. It may be so. But tn
 lay world remembers that the progenitor
 of these same physicians denied the circu
 lation of the blood to the last day of thei
 lives. We owe to Koch and his co-work | CTS the knowledge to the fact of the exis | tence of microbes; what use they may b'
 put to remains yet to be discovered.