Morning journal and courier., 1891-04-22
COMMUNICATIONS.
Grip and Pneumonia-The Koch
Treatment.

(TFID ana Fnc AOcn
Treatment.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
The death of DR.. James K. Thacher after
an illness of two days under an attack of
pneumonia is one of those shocking disas-
ters which are hard to understand. He
not only had the fine qualities of heart and
character which made his father one of the
most beloved men Yale has ever known,
but his intellectual gifts and resources
we're of the rare order which make great
scientific physician. He had more than
passed the threshold of distinction as an
investigator, and as both q professor and
practitioner would have filed out an ideal
career if his life had been spared. His sud-
den death seems to me to point to lamentable
failure of medical science to make out the
true character of the disease which carried
him off. am not informed as to the form
which the pneumonia took in his case nor
as to complications which may have con-
tributed to its fatal termination. But in
regard to both pneumonia and the epi-
demic which in various parts of the world
has within few weeks destroyed SO many
lives desire to say a word.
The one widely effective cause of disease
in the human system is the introduction
of some subtle poison, either from the air
or by means of its presence in food or
drink. An eminent authority says: 1.-The
large class of diseases in which fever is
the predominant factor, although differing
widely among themselves as to their char
acters and pathological manifestations, are
believed to arise from the introduction
into the system of something of the nature
of poison, upon which all the morbid
phenomena depend. The term malignant
is employed to describe forms of fever in
which the blood appears to undergo rapid
deteriorating changes, some times desig-
mated blood poisoning"
1t has been made evident by recent re-
searches that the universal air is contami-
mated by volatile poison due to the exha-
latiens of the human breath, in man and
other animals. This poison is as constant
fact as the air we breathe. That state of
the atmosphere which produces or favors
the epidemic form of influenza causes
concentration of this poison, but COM
paratively mild concentration. In the nor
NAL healthy action of the system we are
constantly taking in this poison and as con-
StanUly GuTOWluR IL oll. NSAO
we at once check the throwing
off process, with the result of instant
more or less dangerous accumulation of
the poison. If this accumulation is gen.
eral in the system it produces the peculiar
influenza which has been epidemic the
last few weeks, making a serious, if not
dangerous disease, because the SYSTEMS
violent effort to throw off the poison not
only produces fever, which is incidental
to the healthy resistance of the system to
the presence of the poison, bat carries
off, or rapidly deteriorates the quality of
the protoplasm of the system. The for
nation of microbes is incidental to the
altered state of protoplasm, but is re-
suit of the disease, not its cause. The
various notable diseases which may be
referred to the single cause, or like
cause, poison of some sort appear in con-
sequence of various forms of the poison,
or various seats of its action in the sys-
TEN, according either to the
way in which the sufferer
takes cold, or to the tendency to trouble
in one part rather than another, which
may be due to the persons internal state
or to external conditions. 1t is highly
probable that the summer may give cholera
where the spring has given influenza and
that the south may see yellew fever where
general causes have brought influenza in
colder climates. The frequent immunity
of the south from influenza is largely due
to the habit which the climate establishes
of more free taking in and throwing of
the ordinary form of the poison to which
so much disease is due. Where the negro
escapes yellow fever it is because the race
is used to excess of the poison. In the case
of pneumonia the seat of the action of the
| poison is in the lungs and related parts, OIL
1f III ha Lobe
\ or lobes of one lung, or of both lungs, OF
more diffused where bronchial trouble
| has already existed, or in third
| form chiefly affecting the general frame
work of the lung. Consumption is &
poison disease of the lungs akin to the
third form of pneumonia. DR.. Koch''
| treatment for consumption is simply in
| PRODUCTION of the poison of the disease
| itself to set up violent effort of the sys
tenn to expel the intruder; and this effor
may result favorably, although the expert
| ment is not only doubtful but dangerous
and not in the line of the best treatment
which is that of securing the best actor
of the lungs, and of the whole system, ant
of supporting the strength of the patien
by diet, nursing and mental influences
The claim that the cause of the disease i
microbe which the Koch poison vii
kill, or that the Koch poison will kill tn
cause of the disease, rests on nothing bu
ignorance and delusion. 1t may, as jus
stated, produce a violent increase o
trouble, from which will follow clearanc
of beneficial character, but the douh
is grave to the last degree, and few e1
periments in practice call for more wis
hesitation, instructed discernment an
critical judgment. In proportion, as th
tuberculosis is external, the Koch treat
ment might work well in the hands of th
competent practitioner. The one thin
which people need to especially learn
the peril of taking cold and tho need {
prompt heating treatment upon takin
cold, without which any other medic
treatment may fail.
EDWARD G. TowNE.