The record-union., 1895-02-18
ANTI-TOXINE CRAZE.
Chemical Manufactures Abroad
Are Responsible

DR.. Minors Characteristic Talk-He
Scores the Iuoculation Theory
To His Mind it is DECEASED Homeo-
pathy-The Only Treatment in Med
icine is the Rational Empiric-Doc-
tors Too Credulous-Anti-To is
Fad and It's Fame Rests on Doc
tored Statistics.
"Now," said DIR. It. G. Minor to a
IaneeS-StaT reporter, ''it physician can
report 100 per cent. of cures by the use of
the old remedies, what special credit can
be claimed for anti-toxine, which reports
from u to IA per cent. of deaths? A ply
slclan OF the conservative class made a
report recently Of fifty to sixty cases of
diphtheria in which everyone of the pa
tients recovered. Now the physicians
who are disciples of the incubation the
DRY may doubt this mans statistics. l
will grant them the right, but l must be
granted the same right to doubt the sta
house. Statistics are the most pliable
things on earth. Altman can manufact-
ure statistics and manipulate them any
way he pleases to make his case The
antl-toXine craze will sweep this country
and create as great a sensation as the tu
berculin did, but there is no more in il.
The chemical manufactures in Germany
or France are responsible for Its greatest
boom. Medicines, with us. are just like
| fashions, we have to get them from Eu-
rope. Anything that comes from across
the water IS gospel and the doctors swal-
low IL with aYidity. The factories see
good chance TO make money oil the new
drug and they herald II III every way as
DenetactiOn. Their habit is to take some
| young, unknown doctor. and install him
as an authority. Then he gives out a
long list OF statistics and comments on
them at great length. So he becomes
known as the great professor. L have no
| objection. The medical held is crowded
and the efforts to make money drives the
young doctor into all sorts OF schemes
within the code. One way is to become
attached TO a hospital and have your
name mentioned as etfecting marvellous
results, and another is TO become a
prOtege of manufacturer of medicines
NOW, a man who watches the career
f. Of cures and studies the history of medi-
cine, Will not be so easily carried away
ton theory that has the cali. There is
PaSteur, with the cure for hydrOphobia,
which Is exploded. Before Pasteurism
| became known there were recorded in
| France tOrty-One deaths year from hy-
! drOphObIa, and last year IL was claimed
that the PaSteur institute treated 400
cases. It is known that in some cases
the treatment at the institute developed
the disease in persons who went there as
patients without having the disease.
Then there was Haffkine with his choI-
era cure, equally valueless. Ii is claimed
that he Is now in India gathering more
facts. Then came Koch. But the local
doctors are not quite up to date. They
have not yet been smitten with a
mania for the natur-heil. That is the
latest fad in Germany. The inoculators
want to do away with all empirical medi-
cine, but the natur-heIl men do not be-
lieye IN medicine at all. They believe
that physical culture, baths and massage
Will cure all the evils that flesh is heir to.
1t Is simply the extreme swing OF the
pendulum. 1t will strike the doctors OF
this country in fifteen or eighteen months.
Now mark my prediction.
That there are bacteria, no one who
has a microscope can deny. There are
bacteria Of health and of disease. But
that the microbes present in diseased or
ganS are the cause OF disease Is not proved.
They may be the result. BacteriOlOgy
I
method for protection is the rational en-
piric. Why according TO the bacterioIO-
gists child would have to be inoculated
with the poisons of all the infectious and
contagious diseases under the sun before
being eligible to attend school. Just
think, he would have to be inOculated
with the poison OF typhoid, typhus,
measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, per-
haps yellow fever, consumption, etc.
What sort OF an animal would that child
be? Now, with the smallpox vaccination
II is different. The smallpox poison I'M
dergoes a change IN the COW which iu-
sures the vaccinated person against harm.
But even vaccinations only temporary
preventive. 1t Is often asked why doc
tors families do not get smallpox in an
epidemic? 1t Is because they are vac
cinated every month or Oftener during
the epidemic"
The reporter suggested that since anti
toxine does no harm there should be no
objection TO It's use.
But how do you know it does no
harm?" asked the doctor. The enthusi-
asts say it does not do harm, but that
does not prove it.
There are two evil tendencies in med-
cine. one is its commercialization, the
other the tendency to materialism. TIE
cOmmerclallZatlOn of medicine leads to
the medicine factories urging every new
cure, sO-calIed, for all it is worth. The
tendency 10 materialIsm makes doctors
tllnk that they can take the human body
and handle it as a mechanic does a ma
chine. This is false notion.
But to return to the subject. | believe
that there is not a doctor in Cincinnati
who would submit a child of his sick
with dIphtheria to the auti-toXine treat
ment. There's test for enthusiasm. l
Imagine the doctor whose child was sick
would say, Il won't use it. 1t is all right,
but think that Will reserve its use for
hospital cases. The statistics read nice
Every case where the klebs- Loeffier
bacillus is found is called diphtheria and
nothing else is called diphtheria. But
there is dipntheria where the klebs-Loef-
fer bacillus is not found, and the bacil-
lus is found in Threats which are not
dlphtheritic, in cases OF follicuIar tonsilI-
tbs. The reduced death rate may be &C
counted for also by the fact that form
erly, when the death rate was higher in
the hospitals, only the most serious cases
and poorer classes OF people went there
for treatment. Now they admit all cases.
and those of wealthier persons. The
classes that are better Off are naturally
better able TO resist disease. Now, these
two facts naturally account for lower
death rate. These taken together with
the fact that many cases that are not diph-
iberia are recorded as dlphtheria, and
many that are diphtheria are recorded as
something else and the doctoring OF sta
tistics make it impossible to make a true
estimate OF the disease. Medicine is not a
science, and doctors are the most credu-
lous people in the world. They take the
statistics in as they might be poured
down a funnel and run wild. l do not
believe that there is a single case in
which the pure anti-toXine treatment has
I been tried. and wDpra has hapn