Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-02-18
4 PHYSICIANS GLANCE INTO THE
 FUTURE

tTuc lOlloWluB was WTittcu lor hoii' don correspondent by Dr. Andrew Will son, who is today considered one of England's leading physicians)
 (By Dr. Andrew Wilson,
 It was the fixed belief of the ancients that many living creatures came into existence spontaneously and the begin ming of the germ theory arose out of a ludicrously simple observation made by Redi, a Florentine physician, abou, the middle of the seventeenth century He debated with his confreres in Flor. ence the question of the origin of the maggots appearing in decomposing meat The old view held, of course, that the maggots originated within dead and put relying substances. Redi, taking g piece of meat, covered the mouth of the jar in which 1t was contained with a piece of fine guaze. He beheld the flesh flies attracted by the decaying meat coming to deposit their eggs, after the manner of their kind, in the decompos- ing substance. The gauge, however, kept them from affecting this natural object with tho result that the eggs were laid on the subject of the gauge and the maggots there matched out, whilst the decay of the meat went on uninter. ruptodly, without single maggot ap- bearing in it's substance.
 So the principle became fixed in time that every germ born into the world is the child and offspring of living organism.
 Turning to another feature of this wonderful romance of medicine in re- lation to the discoveries which have been made regarding germ life, we find an illustration of very strange, and at the. same time shillfully wrought ou, scheme on the part of mankind in mak. ing germ life contend against itself by what is known as the "anti-toxin treat. ment."
 Taking such a disease as diptheria, fol example, 1t iszound that by inoculatins horse with pure cultures of diptheria germs there is developed in the blood of the animal in due time certain prin. ciples to which the name of antitoxins is applied. These substances are the direct result of the germs breeding and multiplying in the blood of the animal the blood acting in this case as soil to the germs viewed as seeds. If now these antttoxns extracted from the horses blood be used in the form of an inoculation in the ease of human being suffering from tiphtheria, 1t :s found that they tend to evict the germs of the disease running riot in the human body, to modify their growth, and thus to cause tho disease to terminate.
 A whole field of romance opens be- fore our eyes whom wc contemplate the possibilities of tho extension of this mode of treating disease. We could in fact picture to ourselves the physician of the future having largely abolished the use of drugs, and having prepared for him series of antitoxins. each adopted for the treatment of a partic. ular disease, and each capable of com. batting its own disease on very satis. factory terms indeed, when the fate of the patient is to be considered.
 Further enlarging the vista of the romance of medicine beyond the points within which our feet tread with fairly firm step today, VIC might perchance forecast time when through some def nite discovery the processes of healing in the body might be highly expedited We know for certain, for example, that in the wonderful white cells of our blood we possess an army of living units whose duty 1t is to attack disease germs gaining admittance to our bodies and to assist in healing processes at large.
 With tho eye of scientific faith we might be permitted to dream of time when through scientific means of fortl- flying and encouraging the poweys of this home army of defense, so to speak, the inroads of disease would not merely be very materially prevented, but also those processes through which health might be regained, would be made a matter of hours instead of days, or 1t may be of days, instead of weary weeks or months.