Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1909-02-10

son' a NJ, NJ. ~. IN the saturday E5enfng
Post, Jan. Is, 1901
Few OF us who have been in practice
twenty years or more, or even fifteen, will
ever forget the shock of dismay which ran
through us whenever a case to which we
had been summoned revealed itself to be
diphtheria. OF course, there was a fight
ing chance, and we made the most of it.
for in the milder epidemics only ten to
twenty per cent. of the patients died; and
even in the severest, third OF them re-
covered.
But what stunned our liver to water''-
as the graphic oriental phrase has it
was the knowledge which, like Banquo's
ghost, would not down; that while many
cases would recover OF themselves, and in
many border-line ones our skill would
turn the balance in favor of recovery, yet
IL the disease happened to take certain
sadly familiar, virulent form we could do
little more to stay its fatal course than we
could to stop an avalanche, and we never
knew when particular epidemic or
particular case would take that turn.
Group has almost ceased to be one of the
bogies. Of the nursery. And why? Be-
cause membranous Group has been dis
covered to be diphtheria, and children
will not develop diphtheria unless they
have been exposed to the contagion, while
il they should, we have remedy against
it. He was bold man who first ventured
to announce this, and for years the battle
ragged hotly. Few, however, boards OF
health require isolation and quarantine
against Group exactly as against sny other
form Of diphtheris.
.
For years we were in doubt as to the
cause Of diphtheria. Halt dozen differ
emit theories were advanced; bad sewerage,
foul air, overcrowding; but it was not I'M
til shortly after the Columbus-like dis
covery, By Robert Koch, OF the new con-
tinent Of bacteriology that the germ which
caused it was arrested, tried and found
guilty. and our real knowledge Of and
control over the disease began. This put
US upon solid ground and our progress
was both sure and rapid; in ten years our
knowledge Of the causation, the method
OF spread, the mode of assault upon the
body fortress, and last, but not least, the
cure, stood out clear cut as die, model
anda prophecy Of what may be hoped for
in most other contagious diseases.
By stern necessity of fate, which no
one regrets more keenly than the labora-
tory workers themselves, the guinea pig
has had to be used as stepping stone for
every inch Of this progress. Upon it were
conducted every one Of the experiments
whose result widened our knowledge, I'M
til We found that this bacillus and no
other would cause. diphtheris; that instead
of getting, like many other disease germs,
into the blood, it chiefly limited itself to
growing and multiplying upon compare
lively small patch OF the body surface,
most commonly Of the throat; that most
Of its serious and fatal results upon the
body were produced, not by the entrance
Of the germs themselves into the blood,
but by the absorption Of the toxins or
poisons produced by them on the moist
surface Of the throat, just as the yeast
plant will produce in alcohol, in grape
juice or sweet cider.
DISCOVERY OF ANTIrOxIN.
Here was most important clew. 1t was
not necessary to fight the germs them
selves in every part Of the body, but merely
to introduce some ferment or chemical
substance which would have the power
OF neutralizing their poison. Instantly at
tention was turned in this direction, and
it was quickly found that if guinea pig
were injected with a very small dose of
the diphtheria toxin and allowed to re-
cover he would then be able to throw off a
still larger dose until finally, after a
number of weeks, he could be given a
dose which would have promptly killed
him in the beginning of the experiments,
but which he now readily resisted and re-
covered from. Evidently some substance
was produced in his blood which was a
natural antidote fer the toxin, and little
further search quickly resulted in the dis
covery and filtering out OF his body the
now famous antitoxin. A dose OF this in
jected into another guinea pig suffering
from diphtheria would promptly save its
life.
Could this antitoxin be obtained in suf
ficient amounts to protect the body OF
human being? The guinea-pig was so
tiny and the process of antitoxin- forming
so slow that we naturally turned to larger
animals as a possible source, and here it
was quickly found that of these the goat
and the horse not only would develop this
antidote substance very quickly and in
large amounts, but that certain amount
OF ii, or substance acting as an antitoxin,
was present in their blood to begin with.
OF the two, the horse was found to give
both the stronger antitoxin and the larger
amounts of it, so that he is now exclu-
sively used for its production.
After his resisting power had been raised
to the highest possible pitch by successive
injections of increasing doses Of the toxin,
and his serum (the watery part OF the