Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-12-30

New York, Dec. 30.-Cerebro spinal meningitis, the dread disease which in 1905 took, unchecked, more than 1000 lives in. three months in this city, has apparently been conquered by pr. Si mon Flexner, head of the Rockefeller Institute For Medical Research.
 Dr. Flexner, after almost three years of research and hundreds of expert ments, has discovered an antitoxin serum with which to combat the mer- ciless spotted fever" Recently he has treated more than sixty persons with it. In no case was there failure. Each patient recovered. Announcement is to be made this week in the official scientific journal of the Rockefeller institute of the doc tors successful tests. Through mod esty and excess of caution he has not yet announced his discovery to the medical world in general. But re- l port of 1t read by him at meeting of the Academy of Physicians was re- ceived with great enthusiasm, and many of his auditors declared after hearing his successes that he had found the long looked weapon that medicine needed to fight one of it's worst foes.
 Horse Used to Obtain Serum. The serum is obtained from the blood of a horse. A quantity of fluid from the spinal canal of meningitis pa i tient containing naturally germs of the , disease is withdrawn and injected into the animal. Its body, larger and stron- ger. is not seriously affected, but at the same time sets up great quanti- ties of germ cumulative material. This, withdrawn from the, horse and rein | jected into the human, kills off the re- maining meningitis germs.
 4 director of the institute told of the discovery. He said he and his as- serum was an absolute success and would prove one of the greatest bene- | factions to mankind.
 Ut cannot be pronounced infallible until tested on cases which have viru- lence such as was possessed by many during the epidemic of 1905." said this physician. But from it's present re- suits l feel certain that it would prove efticacious under the most adverse con. ditions
 No serum has ever been used with success heretOfore-in fact, there never was real antitoxin serum for cerebro spinal meningitis. There is nothing very surprising in the method of the discovery It was made along the classic lines of Jenner, Koch and Pas teur who learned that antitoxin serums might be obtained from animals in- oculated with disease from humans. Long Series of Experiments.
 "It required close, patient and intel. ligent experimentation. and along those lines Dr. Flexner reached his success. ! full end.'
 twill this discovery prevent epidem. ics such as that of 1905?" the director was asked.
 "I feel sure" he said, "that 1t will make an epidemic altogether improba. ble by saving the lives of those who are first affected and also by prevent. ing the spread of the disease. I be- lieve if we had this serum in 1905 the epidemic would not have reached any. thing like the proportions it did. The treatment Is fairly simple. is not ex. pensive and may be applied quickly" Then there will be no more epidem. ics of cerebro spinal meningitis?"
 "I hope not. Certainly not if tho serum proves successful in cases of epidemic-like virulence. would say it should he as successful in combating that disease as vaccination is in fight. ing smallpox"
 The disease was known as the "black death" in the middle ages.