Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-05-18
LYMPH PROVED USELESS
Deegan. the Test Case. Dies Under
Treatment.



It Is Now Called, Has Become
an Undesired Drug In
tho Market.
'ss-Dr. Koch's lymph as a prospective cure
for tuberculosis has departed; all the
enthusiasm about it gradually effervesced
and evaporated; Deegan, the American
test case, the man selected as the most
promising subject for treatment with the
lymph for the cure of phthisis, who was
sent to Berlin and received the most
thorough care and consideration, without
question Of expense. died at St. Francis's
Hospital, in New York city.
But the hope for the cure Of tubercu-
losis still lives. The old remedies that
have cured even cases Of phthisis are to-
day better adapted than ever for similar
cures, and the entire re-study Of the
dread disease, which the use Of thu
lymph stimulated, has done much good
by Weakening physicians to keener APP
probation OF all the assured facts which
science has yet brougtA to bear upon the
subject. s,..... ~.
Inquiry among the New York doctors,
who, during the lymph boom last winter
were most frequently quoted in regard
to its effects, elected the uniform reply
that very few cases are now under treat
ment with the material in or about the
metropolis. Its administration has been
abandoned at alI>the New York hospitals
where there were some 500 patients under
IL, though it ia said that at the Long ISL
and College Hospital in Brooklyn a series
Of experiments with the lymph are being
conducted, nothing concerning which
will be made known until the patients
have been treated with 1t for two years.
The private asylums especially fitted foi
the care of patients who did not wish ia
go to the public hospitals for lymph
treatment have been converted to other
uses, and lymph is literally drug in the
market. The question asked of appli-
cants for It in Berlin now il not chow
soon do you want itl" but chow much do
you want~
In few places in the Western States,
where the boom took a considerable time
to reach, the enthusiasm has not yet en-
tirely died out, but in Berlin nobody ever
says lymph" any moro. The bottles OF
it which come to this side now are all
labelled "Guberculine" and that is the
name by which the stuff will probably be
referred to in history. None of it has
been manufactured on this side of the
Atlantic, and none will be. Even the
cases of lupus (which disease from its ex-
ternality was adjudged to be more sus-
ceptible Of cure by the lymph, some Of
which were discharged as cured, have not
evinced permanency in their cure.
The great trouble with the lymph was
that It did not kill the tuberculosis
bacilli. II the bacilli could be annihil-
ated in the system the disease would be
exterminated. The hope for the lymph
was that it would accomplish this pur-
pose by destroying the tuberculosis tissue
upon which the bacilli feed. But
| it seems to have been Intellectual even in
this indirect siege against the infinitesi-
NAL germs. Though it was at one time
stated that the bacilli in expectoration
bore q very different and less healthy as
pect after q certain stage of lymph
treatment, this hoped-for effect was
subsequently nullihed-the bacilli APP
peared eventually to thrive as well upon
| lymph as any other diet. Unless Koch
or somebody else can devise a species of
lymph that will directly kin the bacilli,
the method Of treatment for the disease
seems hopeless. The results of the ex.
periments, however, have put tuberculine
into certain category Of usefulness,
which, as yet, different doctors see from
different points of view; the possibilities
of this undoubtedly very potent new
drug have not all yet been allocated.
DIR. Shrady, who took a very active in
terest in the Deegan case. and referred to
his unfortunate death with . sigh, said in
reviewing the lymph campaign that he
had been very much discouraged about
the treatment. After the very extensive
trials made with It in New York it had
fallen quite short of meeting even ordi
nary expectations as compared with other
l methods Of treatment for the cure OF
tuberculosis. He did not say this as 9
snap Judgment, but after mature delibera
ton and thorough experience with the
lymph at st. Francis Hospital where, and
elsewhere, he had used and abandoned it