The news-democrat. (Providence, R.I.) 1906-1909, 1907-12-30
MENINGITIS
SERUM FOUND
BY OR. FLEXAEh

New York. Dec 3O.--Cerebro- spinal men
ingitls. the dread disease which In 1910
took unchecked. more than one thousand
lives IL three months In this city, haffap-
parortly been conquered by DIR. simon
Fiezner. head OF the Rockefelled Insti9s
tute for Medical Research.
Dr Flexner. after almost three years or
research and hundreds OF expericents. has
discoN cred an antl-toxin serum with which
TO combat the merciess spotted fever.
Recently he has treated more than %
persons with IL. In no case was there
failure. Il oh patient recovered.
Announcement is To be made this week
in ihe official scientific journal of The
Rockefeller institute OF the Doctors sue
cessful tests. Through modesty and eN-
cess Car.tion he has not set announced his
discovery go the medical world In general.
But a report OF " read by him al "A meet
ing last week OF the Academy Of Physi-
clans was received with great enthusiasm.
and many OF his auditors declared AFTER
hearing his successes that he had fould
the long-looked-for weapon that medicine
needed 10 fight one OF It's worst foes.
HORSE USED TO OBTAIN SERUM.
The serum is obtained from the blood OF
horse. A quantity of fluid from the
spinal canal OF a meningitis patient. con-
taining naturally germs OF the disease, is
withdrawn and injected into the animal
It's body. larger and stronger. Is not
seriously affected. but at the same time
sets up great Qualities OF germ-combatiye
material. This. withdrawn from the horse
and reinjected into the human kills of tho
remaining meningitis germs.
A director OF the institute told yester-
day OF the discovery. He said ne and his
associates felt sure that DIR. Flexner's se-
rum was an cbsobIte success and would
prove one OF the greatest benefactions TO
mankind
1T cannot be pronounced infallible UNI
I'll tested on cases which have virulence
such as was possessed by many during the
epidemic OF 1906" said this physician.
But from it's present results feel GER
tain that IL would prove efficacdous under
the most adverse conditions.
mo serum has eben been used with sue
cess heretofore; In fact. there never was
real anti-toxin serum for cerebro-spinai
meningitis. There Is nothing very surpris-
ing in the method of the discovery. 1t
was made along the classic lines OF Jen-
ner, Koch and Pasteur. who learned that
anti-toxin seruns might be obtainer from
animals inoculated with disease from hu-
mans
LONG SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS.
"It required close. patient and intellf-
gent experimentation. and along those
lines DR.. Flexner reached his successful
| end"
Twill this discovery prevent epidemacs
such as that OF 1862" the director was
asked
1T feel sure" he said. that II will
make an epidemic altogether Improbable
| by saving the lives OF those who are first
affected. and also by preventing the
spread OF the disease. believe If we had
| this serum in 1906 the epidemic would not
have reached onything like the proper
| tlons It did. The treatment Is fairly
simple. is not expensive and may be APP
piled quickly"
"Then there will be no moro epldemics
of cerebro-spinal meningitis?'
| II hope not; certainly not. IL the serum
| works"