The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-01-07
IN FORETELLs DISEASE.
MIcrO-PhOtOSraDhy May BE IA Boon
to Afflicted Mankind.
From the New York world.

Dr. S. Mnlington Miller Of No 1863 Fifth
avenue, thinks that his friend, DR.. r. L.
Watkins, Of No. 81 West Thirty-seventh
street, Is making discoveries that may
prove of inestimable value in the diagn-
osis and treatment Of diseases.
Recent photographs Of his have shown
the presence of conditions producing APP
oplexy twelve months before the fatal
attack and the presence of typhoid fever
germs three weeks before the disease
manifested itself by the usual symptoms.
Typhoid fever" said DR.. Miller to a re-
porter yesterday, lis a poison that comes
in through the stomach by means of con-
taminated water or food or matter thrown
off by a typhoid fever patient.
"Dr, Watkins has succeeded in photo
graphing a white blood corpuscle in the
act of destroying "A typhoid fever germ.
He used photo-mlcrograph, which mag
nifes and photographs simultaneously. IN
this case he secured a drop of blood from
a girl Is years old whose finger had been
pricked with a needle This drop was
placed on a glass slide, which was placed
within l-2iOO Of an inch Of the photograph
c lens.
1.-THE chief function of the white cor
puScles is to produce the red corpuscles,
which renew our tissues, and to renew
these corpuscles when they are ex-
hausted. Besides this the white corpuscles
act as the scavengers of the system. They
seize all germs or poisonous matters of
any kind that find their way into the blood
and destroy them.
In this instance DR.. Watkins has OBJ
tanned micro-photograph of typhoid
fever germs engulfed and being destroy
ed by white corpuscles The white cor
puscles take in and expel poisons by end
osmosis and ixosmosis. In other words,
they feed as the jelly fish feeds.
'Of course, If DR.. Watkins had known
at the time that the foreign matters
shown in the white corpuscles were ty-
phoid germs he could have treated the girl.
Her photograph was simply one among
hundreds of others. 1t was not until the
girl developed typhoid fever three weeks
later that he referred to the photographs
of drop of her blood and saw the germs.
He took a photograph of a drop
of blood taken fronpt the finger of a IT.
tie girl only 10 years old and learned
twelve months after taking the photo
graph that the girl had died of apo
pleXy. Thereupon he went back in his
records aud found this picture. 1t
shows that the red curpusces are nor
NAL. There is no popularity in them or
in their arrangement. The white COR
puscles, however, are cougth in a tangle
of fibrn. Normally fibrin is a diffuse
element of the blood The white cor
puscles when normal float with it apd
do not become entangled in 1t.
From the time that picture was taken
up to the moment of the little girls
death the ENHANCEMENT of the white cor
pusces in the flbrn became more pro-
nounced each day. At last it formed an
embolus in the blood which disintegrated
it. clot was formed IN the heart and
the patient died.
Had it been known at the time Of
taking the picture that the indications
meant apoplexy, the child could have been
treated and probably her life could have
been saved.
THE great value of DR.. Watkins work
lies in the possibility of discovering dis
eases that are impending and treating
them before they have so far advanced
as to render the patient weak"