The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-01-18
LIVE AND DEAD BACTERIA.
DIR. Koch Discovered Facts Long known
Seattle Physicians Researches.


s'The Koch Consumption Humbug' is the
latest telegraphic heading. and Professor vir-
chow, the most eminent Psychologist of Europe,
says thefpost mortems Of victims OF the Koch
"cure' show results identical with abdominal
typhus. This seems TO be miserable end TO
glorious beginning. Even as ''faith cure" it
should have been less disappointing, for that
great essential, faith, was certainly not lacking.
The sufferers, trayersing continents and oceans,
implored ON their Bonded knees for drop of
this elixer OF life, Tor which they were willing
TO pay any price, but they die for all
that One great lesson, and tina. is worth very
much indeed, has just been learned by the
thinking people of the world, namely. that the
opinions of medical men all the world over are
no better than the opinions OF so many black
smiths or farmers-doubtful IL so good. With
out an investigation, without even knowing the
ingredient of that loathsome compound-now
admitted to be OF decom posed bacilh-they one
and all proclaimed il sure cure. This win be
boomerang TO the medical profession which no
amount OF sophistry and caIomel will cure.
They have unmasked themselves. There have
been few-very few mild doubters, and they
were Frenchmen; they did not doubt as physi-
cians-physicians never doubt anything which
emanates from their own creed
but they doubted with true French
prejudice against everything of German origin.
And right here ii is eminently fitting to point
theory six years ago in a volume by him en-
titled the Revolution of Medicine tHanscorn
Publishing Company, Chicago, publishers), in
which he with mastery skill and irrefutable
logic mercilessly tore the mask off the imitation
Medusa, before which the medical world stood
petrifed from pure Illogical stupidity. That
man, who dared TO face the accepted belief. said
that bacilh were the result not the cause of dis
ease; that the mistake was made on
account OF finding the bacteria in diseased
tissue and hence attrbuting TO it the cause. tits
no more cause than is the buzzard that feasts
upon dead horse the cause of its death, but
only the result, ..You claim" said the author
"the reason that everyone does not succumb 10
consumption is due to the superior healthy
lungs they possess; il is only the unhealthy
lungs which the bacteria attack. Then what
avals il to kill the bacteria simply to make room
for another colony, that Is, If you have not
killed the patient in the attempt TO kill the
supposed enemy? Why not attempt to discover
the cause OF the unhealthy condition of the
lungs and cure it, thus forever putting
a stop TO the invasion of bac-
terra, which you yourselves admit are
harmless TO healthy tissue" Still the medical
world insisted that bacteria injected into
healthy tissue produced dangerous tesults. thus
showing the malgnity OF germs. But our
author maintained that 1t was not the bacteria
at all which produced the bad results, but the
decomposed abumen, the medium in which
they ioated, which was ptomain and poisoned
the system, not the bacteria. We're you 10 re-
move tie bacteria from the medium it would
have the same effect And now Koch himself
admits that his .'eure" consists OF dead bacteria
and which be says produce the same results as
Hving(D bacteria, thus demonstrating that the
author was right and that it was the
deeomposed albulnen (ptomain) and not
the bacteria which produced the harm
full results blndly, iIlogically aud I'M
scientifically attributed to the germs. West
ward the star OF empire, ETC., has never been fit
ter illustrated. The author above mentioned is
an honored citizen of Washington's metropolis,
DR.. J. Eugene Jordan and the thinker will ad-
nit that his theory towers head and shoulders
nh that Of knch,s and his cnInraers