The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-02-23
CURE OR POISON.


boom is already threatened.
1t will doubtless reach this country IN
due time, unless the RoUx remedy for
diphtheria sooner proves itself of more
substantial value than has yet been in
dieated.
Meanwhile the New York Herald is
piling up lis subscription fund for the
Production of the alleged diphtheria-
killing serum, fund that already
amounts to over $4,000, and while we do
not hear so much as formerly about
movements to get city and State gov
ernments TO appropriate money for pub
lie stocks of the stuff, experimentation
has not ceased, and many of our friends
Of the medical profession continue to
find what an English review calls the
" sweet uses of advertisement, by
reason of their Enthusiastically con-
Quoted researches.
As 10 these researches, however, we
hope they may be continued, if there is
any way CT doing it without danger to
life. until we learn " for sure whether
or not there is anything of value in this
anti-toxin. We should think, however,
that the scientist of medicine might be
able to study the things out satisfac-
torily to scientific conclusion, one way
or the other. and not be bound hand and
foot to empiricism and be compelled to
depend so much on practical results
that are inexplicable and not traceable
by process of theoretical reason. We
are aware that medicine is not mathe-
matics. Its practice is a good way from
being an exact science. But as we
understand it there is usually TO be
found pretty fair pathological explana-
tion for the results achieved by the run
of treatments and remedies and that,
however haphazard the discovery of
some of them may naturally have been,
their continued use is not based on the
fact that they accomplish results that
cannot be explained outside of actual
practice.
The anti-toxin fad is based simply ON
the discovery claimed by DR.. BEHRING
that the cultivation of one of the micro
organisms found in the throat deposit in
cases of diphtheria is sterilized
by the serum taken from the
blood of mammal which had
previously been injected with the diph-
liberia bacillus. DIR. PIERRE PAUL RoUx
took up this idea, put it to practice, and
thereupon acquires world wide fame,
known to our medical friends, vulgarly,
as advertising, and no end of medals
and other tributes to distinction. The
fact is, however, that the particular
bacilli which are supposed to be killable
by this serum are not really known to
be the exciting cause of diphtheria but
are only supposed TO be; and that they
are not really known to be killable by
the serum but only supposed to be.
And an analysis of all the experiments by
no means demonstrates that these sup
positions are true, while il is not i'm
probable that the inoculation to cure
diphtheria results in poisoning the blood
of the patient and may result in fasten-
ing upon him something worse than
diphtheria. It surely, when You come
to give it second thought. is not a
savory idea to think of having the
serum from horse blood squirted into
your veins--even though the stuff may
be "diphtheria repellant."
Now this DR.. RoUx, as we quoted
some months ago, claims to have re-
duced the rate Of mortality from diph-
liberia in Paris hospital from 81 per
cent, to 26 per cent. As matter
of fact, there is no evidence furnished
of the accuracy of the 81 per cent. death
rate, but if it is correct, it is an abnor-
mally high death rate. while the 26 per
cent, claimed to be due to anti-toxin, is
by no means particularly low rate--al-
though it may be for that particular
hospital which. has had the advantage
of DR.. RoUX's care. We are of the
opinion that hospital practice in this
country will show no such sizable per-
centage of deaths from diphtheria, and
we doubt il our leading physicians will
acknowledge to any such percentage in
their private practice - unless, per-
chance, their diphtheria cases have in
cluded large proportion of infants, for
it is evident that the age Of the patients
is an important factor in the matter.
DR.. RoUX, however. has nothing to say
about the age of his patients, although
DIR. RoUx is attached to a children's
hospital. However, unless his patients
were very young children, 81 per cent.
is an outrageously high proportion of
mortality from diphtheria, and if they
were well developed young men and
young women, mortality of "only"
20 per cent. is no great
shakes as showing either with or with