The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-06
DREAD DISEASE CONQUERED AT LAST Spinal Meningitis Can Now Be CASE OF CHARLES HUGHES Demonstrates at Rhode Island Hospital at Providence How Complete Is
 the Victory of Science.
 Wonderful Serum.
CASE OF CHARLES HUGHES
From the Providence Journal.

] | From the Providence Journal.
 | Medical discoveries of recent years hay { been so spectacular in their results tha 1 the public has pretty much stopped usn 1 the word ''miraele' in connection wit l them. Were it still employed to expres l popular wonder at the trumphs of scienc over disease by the discovery of specifi remedies, there is little doubt that
 would be applied to the case of Charles E
 Hughes. Jr., now recovering at the Rhod
 Island hospital, from cerebrospinal menin
 eitis, the dreaded Spotted fever of ou
 grandfathers' times.
 Various causes combined to make him
 perhaps, the most conspicuous exampl,
 of the victory of medicine over the ghast
 ly and hitherto unconquerable disease
 that until within two years was one ot
 the most distressing and feared in all the 1 catalogue of human malades. And the
 success with which its peril was met and 1 overcome calls renewed attention to the achievement of Dr. Simon Flexner and his associates of the Rockefeller Institute 1 of Medical Research, whose discovery of
 a specific anti-meningitis serum Is rank l ed by physicians as the most important l one of it's kind since diphtheria anti-toXin
 was produced, more than b years ago.
 For, through the recovery of the New ] York governors son, considered by itself, | would be almost theatrically impressive, l it Is only one of a series of such cures | in this city and elsewhere throughout the world during the last two years, series | in which the death rate is found to have l been reduced from about 70 per cent to
 rather less than 25 per cent
 A few months ago at the Newport l Naval Training Station, where outbreaks of "spotted fever have always been among the most feared of all epidemics, I the serum was used in two cases that were considered hopeless with results that confirmed the promises of It's discov- erers. Instead of a scourge. before which medicine stood helpless, and whose re- 1 suits, when they were not fatal, were sometimes almost worse than that, it is now being met and treated with hopeful confidence, even if not with certainty. Its discoverers and users have been | conservative in their predictions, and the use of the serum is still in the experi- | mental stage. But it's results have been subjected to more rigid tests and closer study than Is commonly employed, by system of distribution never attempted before with a similar remedy, and its failures have been so few in proportion to it's successes that little doubt remains of its ultimate place in materla medica.
 The case of young Hughes was typical of the effects 0r the new treatment. as demonstrated repeatedly at the Rhode ls- land hospital On being taken to the h. stitution from Brown university he was l in a condition quickly recognized as criti- | cal Before the discovery of the Flexner serum the case would have been beyond the prediction of the most optimistic phy- sican Medical testimony agreed that | there was no specific medicine and that treatment was a disheartening attempt | to ease tie pain and let nature solve the problem with no material help.
 l But with Dr. Flexners discovery it be- came possible within 24 hours of the time | the disease was diagnosed to ap- l ply a remedy whose effect was prompt | and notably beneficial. A few more ad- 1 ministrations of the serum, which Is tn- 1 iected Into the spinal column, and the patient could be classed as convalescent.
 Peculiar interest was lent the case from | the fact that in the New York Assembly which recently adjourned the debate over an anti-vivisection bill had been vigorous, and for time it seemed likely that a measure aimed at the practice would go before Governor Hughes for his approval or rejection. And the physicians almost | unanimously declare the discovery of the | Flexer serum to be conspicious triumph due directly to animal experimentation . During his studies the lives of scores = 1 monkeys guinea pigs and other animals were sacrificed by Dr. Flexner. Without ] them, he has declared, he could not have ] achieved his final result. The Rockefeller
 Institute of Medical Research, where the | work was done, was nevertheless the in-
 stitution aimed at by the anti-vivisec- tionlsts.
 The discovery was made as the result | of long series of experiments, chiefly
 with monkeys, who were innoculated with | the disease in order that its course might be studied and remedies tested. The re-
 suit was the development of the serum,
 which is produced In horses by repeated | injections of cultures of the diploccoccus, | the tiny organism responsible for the | disease.
 In view of the difficulty of studying
 the disease in a single city, because of its
 comparative infrequency except in times | of epidemic Dr. Flexner adopted an un- | usual method of continuing its observa- 1 tons of the affect of the new treatment. l He made it free for the asking-and to- | day not a particle of it can be bought at
 any price-but placed it's use or distribu-
 ton in the hands of individual phys- l clans on whom he relied for exact and
 detailed reports oI the cases in which 1t
 was employed.
 | In this way he was able to establish a | series of cases which, when studied to- gether furnished greater information in | regard to It's effects under all circum-
 stances than could have been obtained In
 any other way. His record of cases now
 numbers about 1000, and he is shortly to
 publish a detailed study of the results. | What these are likely to be, however, Is
 indicated in general way by study he made when the number reached 400,
 and by his agents In various cities.
 In Rhode Island about 30 cases have
 been treated with the serum since Janu- | ary of last year, when it's use was first | begun. These show a percentage of
 cures, eliminating those in which there f-Was fatal termination within a few
 hours of the first treatment so that il l did not have an adequate test, of about | 80 per cent.
 The full records of all the local cases
 have not been tabulated, but some time
 ago Dr. Frank T. Fulton, pathologist to
 the Rhode Island hospital, who Is the
 distributing physician for the serum in
 this state, described the first 23 cases
 in series of articles In the Boston Medt,
 cal and Surgical Journal. Of these, Il
 recovered and seven proved fatal Oi
 the fatal cases, three were practically
 moribund, or, in dying condition. when
 first seen, and fourth was chronic. the
 patient having been i'll for more than
 five months.
 Eliminating these, according to the
 method used by Dr. Flexner. who sug- gests that nothing can as yet be def-
 nitely claimed for the serum under such
 conditions the recoveries in the cases
 studied totaled S3 1-3 per cent, while | The total mortality including both mori-
 bund and chronic. cases, was fraction