The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-04-18
MICROBES cuRE,TYPHoID FEVER.
Remarkable Results of Experiments b.
Eminent Foreign Physicians.

From European Edition of N, LY. Herald.]
The term acknowledgements is given
to method of treatment based on the
use of the microbes themselves or of the
substances secreted by them. just as the
terms electro Therapeutics and hydro
therapeutics designate treatments in
which electricity and water form the
principal agents.
The researches of Pasteur and of his
assistants on the attenuation of virus
were well suited to point out to physi-
clans the way to follow to find rational
means of preventing.and curing infectious
diseases, which, as everyone now knows
are due to germs. These germs when
isolated, cultivated and attenuated may
on being introduced into the body
stop the evolutionSof the complaint or pre-
vent it by creating refractory condition.
The famous tuberculine was found by
DR.. Koch by using these ideas that were
entirely of French origin and by adapt
ing them to the treatment of tn berculosis
In his haste to transfer to the treatment
of his fellow beings laboratory product
incompletely studied and of uncertain
composition, instigated also by an unde-
niaple desire for wealth, the German
professor was the cause of d quantity of
disasters.
The mishaps caused by the use of
tuberculine have happily not sheltered
the hope founded on the medical use of
attenuated virus, as is shown by the
L do 1,rrn IL
and Manchot, of Hamburg These two
physicians claim to have obtained re-
markable results in the treatment of
typhoid fever by the use of hypodermic
infections of sterilized cultures of the
typhoid bacillus. ..zz.,
Effect OH the Patient.
l do not intend to go into the detfils of
the technical preparations of the liquid
nsed for these injections, but l wish to
refer to tn, effect produced by them A
first injection of five cubic centlmetres
generally produces an appreciable
change in the PATIENTS condition, but a
second injection of one cubic centimetre,
made the next day, causes rise of tenn
perature, sometimes accompanied by
chills. On the third day the tempera-
ture falls, and this lowering is even
greater the day after, at which moment
the temperature may be hall degree
or degree lower than at the beginning
of the treatment.
If the injections be stopped at this
stage it S soon seen that the temperature
begins to rise again. Two more cube
ccntmetres of the culture are then inject
ed, and the same phenomena occur again
but in more marked form than the
first time-that is to say, that after two
days the fall in the temperature is more
noticeable than it was before. This
course should be continued, an injection
being made every three days, increasing
each time by one cubic centimetre the
amoun5 of liquid injected. The injec-
tions should be stopped as the tempera-
ture shows no more tendency TO rise.
Under the influence of this treatment
typhoid fever rapidly loses its regular
character and is changed into remit
tent type of fever. This alteration, pro-
duced by the injection, is accompanied
by profuse perspiration, by considerable
increase In the secretion of the kidneys
and by a manifest improvement in the
fore the fever disappears definitely, the
typhoid dlarrhoea ceases and the patient
becomes convalescent. Nevertheless at
that period it is still possible in some
case, to find the pink lenticular spots,
with enlargement of the spleen, in spite
of the total absence of the fever. 4
valuable at Any Stage.
In cases of typhoid fever that have not
been treated from the beginning by this
new method, the injections still have the
same effect, though they are no longer