The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1904-06-10
believe He IS
ON WRONG TRACK
Philadelphia Doctors Do Not
Take Kindly to Professor
MaragIiano's Method.
HAS CONSUMPTION CURE
But the italian Physician Is Satisfied
He Can Cure the Dread Disease
by incubation Just the
Same.

prominent physicians in Philadelphia
held recently to organize national
society to fight tuberculosis. paper
from an Italian expert was presented.
The author, Professor Edward Mara
Eliano, is at the head of an institution
in Genoa devoted to researches in this
disease, and he reCounted his own con-
ylusions On the subject. He is satisfied
that it is possible by incubation both
to cure persons who are yet in the
Incipient stages and to protect healthy
people from attack, just as they can be
saved from smallpox by vaccination.
'fha world has heard 4 good deal or
such talk in the past ten or fifteen
years, and remembers only too we'll the
ralse hopes excited by Koch's famous
experiments. 1t accepts any fresh
Etory of that kind With great reserve,
therefore, though not without eager in
lcreSt.
Many Methods Employed.
In the hundreds of attempts by
bacteriolo&ists to prepare prophylactics
ana remedies from baccili several diff
aerent methods have been employed.
one may give fairly satisfactory re-
quits with one malady, bat prove dis
appointing with another. In some in
stances it has been feasible to produce
immunity by q series of injections OF
dead bacteria or of solutions of the
poisonous substances Secreted by such
organisms. When the plan was first
tried with the toxins of tuberculosis
it did not work we'll. This was koch'S
program. DR.. Trudeau says of it:
while it produces in the animal eX-
perimented upon certain degree or
acquired resistance to doses that would
at first have proved fatal, 1t does not
Inc
with living tubercle bacili.' The
Saranac Lake specialist himself made
experiments with dead bacilli in 1890
with the same object in view, and be-
came convinced that he was pursuing
the wrong policy. a second system is
based on the introduction into the it's
sues of the animal living germs which
by some treatment have been deprived
Of a part Of their viruence. AS long
ago as 1892, for instance, DR.. Trudeau
made rabbits immune by injections
of baccli taken from birds, the avian
variety being notably less potent than
those in human subjects Later he
substituted human bacilli, whose
character was modified by artificial
culture for long period Of time. Sew
eral other experts have followed in the
same path. Behring now protects
calves from tuberculosis by inoculating
them with living but attenuated human
bacilli.
Followed koch's Leadership.
Although Professor Maragliano din
not reach a conviction regarding the
possibility of mparting immunity to
animals until several years after DR..
Trudeau had done So he has not profit
ed as he might have done by the lat
ter's work. He seems TO have followed
the leadership of Koch. He has used
dead bacilli and toxins to produce the
desired effect on animals. Having gone
that far, he takes the serum from the
blood Of the latter and tries it on
human subjects, with the addition of
an 'infiltrate" of a recent culture. In
other words, he filters a fluid contain
ing bacilll, rejects the solid portion
and reinforces his blood serum with
the toxins left in solution. While a
triiling and temporary influence might
be thus produced one may we'll fear
that no permanent good would result
The Italian briefly and vaguely an
; nounces that the stuff thus obtained
has been tried both on healthy and
sick persons. Subsequent examinations,
he declares, showed an increased pro-
portion of defensive substances in the
blood, and there was dilninution of
toxic symptoms in one or more pa
tients. a good deal more experime
| is necessary before any Importance can
much as If Professor Maragliano was
on the wrong track and as if his re-
,ults were delusive.