The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-03-30
THE TREATMENT OF TYPHOID.

A paper by Dr. Macfadyen, of the Jenner Institute, communicated on Thursday by Lord Lister to the Royal society, is of peculiar interest to the public because it promises an efficient prophylactic and curative treatment for typhoid fever. That dreaded dis ease is known to depend upon the growth and propagation within the human body of the typhoid bacillus. pr. Mactayden has found that by crushing the microscopic cells of that bacillus, in a manner to be presently explained, the intracellular juices can be obtained apart from the living or ganism, and that these juices are high ly toxic. By injecting them in small and repeated doses into living animal it's blood serum is rendered powerfully anti-toxic and bactericidal. That is to say, it becomes an antidote alike to the living typhoid bacteria and to the poi son which may be extracted from them. Animals dosed with the protective se- rum and subsequently, treated with le- thai doses of typhoid bacteria were found to enjoy immunity from typhoid fever while others exposed to the same infection without the previous protec- tive treatment died of the disease. In the same way animals receiving injec- tions of the intracellular poison with out any living bacteria escaped death only when previously treated with the protective blood serum of an animal which had gone through the immuni- zing process. Therefore the blood se- rum in question is prophylastic for typhoid fever Cat least, among the irl- ferior animals.) But further experi- ments were made by injecting dethal doses of the poison or of the living bac- teria, and subsequently, injecting the protective serum after half the time re- quired by the toxic dose to kill the anil mai had been allowed to elapse. In these cases the antidote overlook the poison and the animals recovered. Therefore the serum is curative of ty- phoid fever when already established, as well as protective against typhoid infection. It is thus demonstrated that by the careful inoculation of an animal with the juices of the dead bacteria, it's blood serum can, in the case of typhoid fever, be endowed with the antidotal properties hitherto developed, as in the case oe diphtheria, only by inoculation with the living bacteria. It is reasona- ble to suppose that what holds good in the case of one pathogenetic bacterium will also hold good in the case of oth- CTS. But hypothesis, however reasona- ble, must be verified by experiment. and the work of extracting and inves- tigating the juices of other bacteria is now being carried on at the Jenner In- stitute. Should it turn out, as may be expected, that bacterial juices in gene ral react upon the animal organism in the same way as the living bacteria which produce them, the fact cannot but have a profound influence upon medical speculation and practice.
 The practical advantages of the dis covery are great. When, in order to obtain protective serum, an animal is inoculated with living pathogenetic bac- teria, the result is always quantitative- ly uncertain. The seed may fall upon a highly receptive and fertile soil, and may develop effects of unexpected vio- lence, or, it may fall upon an unusual ly sterile soil and fail to produce the expected results. In other words, we cannot tell what will be the output of bacterial poison from given dose of living basteria. But the bacterial poi son itself, when isolated from the liv- ing bacteria, is a definite pathogenic agent, which we can measure, dilute and test like any other potent drug. Those who know that bacteria are so minute as to be invisible under high microscopic powers, will naturally ask by what unimaginable accuracy of grinding can they be broken up so as to release their intracellular toxins. The answer shows once more how close is the dependence of advance in one de- partment of research upon discovery in