Evening star., 1900-12-15

| with him: Danielson the discoverer of the
germ of leprosy. and Hanson. his son-iu-
| law. who taught us much concerning It's
| characteristics; Rouy and Behrens, who
, perhaps divide the honor of having found
the anti-toxin of diphtheria; Halller. who
| discovered the bacillus OF typhus and ty-
| phoid; Ooermaier. the dscoverer Of the
| bacillus of relapsing fever; Leveran, who
hTst showed the parasitic nature of the
| cause of malaria: Kitasato, the brilliant
japanese observer and pupil of Koch. who
gave us accurate knowledge concerning the
| Duoonic plagle and an auti-toxin for Its
| cure and prevention.
| hundred others might be added to this
| list OF men who have contributed yalua bic
| knowledge in this great field of work and
we may confidently expect that the future
| VIII De quite AS prolific the past In the
| observation and application of exact useful
| knowledge concerning disease germs.
| Prevention and Cure
| 10 name and describe all the disea se-pro-
! ouclhs microbes that have been studied and
classiiied would require more space than
can be spared In an article of this char.
acter. 1t is interesting however to take a
! TOOK over one OF the principal results OF
| meteorological research, that In which We
are most interested, namely. the production
OF ahti-toxin for the prevention and cure OF
! nlcroDic disease The principle upon which
.he PRODUCTION or ant-toxin depends is
| very old; 1t Is that every poison has ito
ahtidote. Every disease Is a case OF poison-
| ing oy the products of the germ life The
| s'uuy OF disease germs has enabled us to
! isoiate more and more perfectly outside OF
| the body. the poisons they producs Tb.sa
polsons. or toxins, they are called ara
gwen TO animals in progressively Increasing
aii Mounts. the initial dose being a very small
one only sufficient to poison The animal
very slightly. We find that nature graf-
| iitS "a toierates larger and larger doses uu-
~ ~ hiallE the animal is a BILE to withstand
'he erect OF dose many times larger than
| "3uId nave killed it in the beginning
IN the case of the anti-toxin OF dlnI-
eFtrla. which Is the best known and which
Hords. perhaps. the best example of all
the animal used is the horse To commenr,,
WIN young. vigorous and healthy horse
- NlJected with an amount Of uiphther.a
pG.soH OF tokn sum tent to XIII .oO0 suinea
| p.ss, each weighing 30 GrammeS. After
from three to five days have disaupeare3
| d second Injection, slightly larger than tn,
liS', IS gwen. In order to partly neutraI-
i%e the eHects of these great doses of moi
son, a certain amount of anti-toxin NAV ha
| given the animal At periods of from livo
.t 70 tistt days the animal is again injected
uhtll TWO months have e,aUSed whom ,t f..
| round to be able to withstand ten ia twenty
tiheS the original amount without showing.
tie eiIectS OF poisoning. At the end of
three months the serum of the blood NJ
.he morse should contain about 500 units OF
anti-toXin TO each cubic centimeter a unit
Is the amount of anti-toXin which protects
a.. guinea pig weighing 25c grammes from
| iU iataI doses of diphthcTia POI son
When the blood Of the hors.. is found bv
sNSht bleeding and tests with guinea p,gs,
e. contain the anti-toxin In this rtrength,
the animal is carefully bled and the serlIna
separated from the iibru of the blood of
course. not enough blood is taken from the
horse to do him any material harm: thus
the animal can be blcd again and again
over considerable period Of time The
names of Heule. Nirchow Scnwan Iieber.
Kuhn, Hoppe-Seyltn. Dalton and Austin
fIlnt indicate to the physician complex
physiological operations the chemico-vital
mechanism Of which WAS solved by tneir
patient study.
The N-Ray.
The most brilliant and dramatic discovery
OF the century and one of great utility was
that made by Rontgcn in 1888, who then
announced the discovery OF the X-ray Az
first the world accepted this announcement
with ncredulity; that any form of light or
energy would enable Us to see through
Opaque bodies seemed lncomprehensibIe
Tine, however, proved the truth Of the an
nouncement, and today are accustomed
tp view the skeleton of living man w.,Aout
aStoDlshment.
The dependence of medicine upon its core
lated sciences has made its advance "A COM
paratvely slow one since medical discoy-
cries have necessarily followed in the wake
OF those sciences. improvements in micro
scopcal lenses opened up the great field OF
bactertology, advances of chemistry have
enabled us to isolate the active principle
OF cinchona. which was discovered by Pile
tier and Caventou IN 1s2i; the discovery OF
other alkaloids followed and the most i'm
portant one isolated in recent time was that
of cocaine, which was found by A Niemanu
In 1859 or 1860. Its value as a local an
aesthetic was discovered by DIR. Carl Kol-
Ter Of Vienna in 1852, while recently DR.,
Leonard Corning of New York found that
when solution Of cocaine was injected into
the spinal canal 1t will shut off sensation
from the lower trunk and limbs, enabling
surgical operations to be performed In these
areas without pain.
Along Other Lines.
Advances in chemistry have also given US
the so-cailed synthetic remedies. The ele-
ments of these remedies separated from
the useless refuse of the gas house the
coal tar. have been regrouped by the chem
lists science forming new substances Of
great therapeutic value. Chief among
these are salol. antipyrin, acetanelid, phe-
nacetin, resorcin, phenacol. trional and
sulfonal
The application of electricity TO medicine
electrical therapeutics-has in the last
quarter of the century made enormous
strides. Magnetic. static and dynamic cleo
tricity and galvanism have been applied to
a wide range of use. The sinusoidal
wave current, devised by Edison. promises
to give US a new agent in effecting local
anaesthesia and In developing muscular
structures.
At present medicine is advancing at al
most railroad speed. Instruments Of pre-
cision for the purpose of diagnosis, like
the stethoscope, opthalmoscope and spyS-
mograph, have been invented. together
with many others almost equally useful.
In the field of surgery, the llthotrite, the
curethrome, the laryngal tube and the
Murphy intestinal button have contributed
to assist the surgeon to reduce the NOR
tality from operations Medical books ten
years old are ancient and antiquated his
torical works Recently n great medical
encyclopedia Of many volumes was revised
the original work was published not more
than ten years ago-and it was found that
more than one-half the original text had
to be entirely cut out and rewritten.
Death Rate Reduced.
It is naturally asked what is the prac-
teal effect of all this advance in medi-
cine? Has the death rate been reduced
and the average length of mans life in
creased? study of the mortality tables
OF New York city shows that in the past
twenty-five years the death rate has been
reduced from wenty-eight per thousand
to eighteen per thousand and that the In
fanti!e mortality, that Is, the number Of
children dying under five years of age,
has been reduced one-third. 1t is impOssl-
BILE to give figures concerning the relative
amount of sickness and demonstrate the
saving of time. consequently money, on