Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-04-09

cally correct in great many diseases: but
experience has shown that it is practically
| effective in comparatively few. In a word,
our human patient often fails to recover,
despite the theoretical soundness of the
treatment.
Now the opsonic method will change the
enpiric uncertainty of all this and put some
| measure of certainty into the various steps.
| 1t will give US a means of determining the
normal attitude of various animals to spe-
| Cifc diseases; it will enable us to observe
| closely the battle between their blood and
the germs; it will enable us to standardize
| the serum taken from their veins, e., to
| fix its exact power to the cubic centimeter,-
| it will enable us to estimate the dose or
| doses required by our human patient; and it
will give us means to determine the serum S
effect upon him and to accurately observe
his progress. 1t is plain that this will make
the manufacture of antigerm seru1ns meas
urably exact art, and so will vastly enCour-
age and facilitate experiment. The result
will be great increase in the number of
effective serums and great advance in the
battle with the germs.
No More Shooting in the Dark
IN word, this increase of knowledge will
in the dark and taking deliberate aim in the
light. We have already succeeded in COM
batting many infectious diseases success
fully; but our success has been the result of
long, laborious, and dangerous experiment,
and we are still rather haZy regarding the
steps that have brought it about. We know
that, vaccination wards off smallpox; but we
also know that now and then man who has
been carefully vacCinated takes smallpox,
and are unable to say of any given man that
he is absolutely immune to the disease. But
when DR.. Wrights method is perfected this
last, believe, will be possible. We shall be
able to face smallpox with clear knowledge
of invariable facts, instead of with an incom-
plete knowledge of probabilities, and we
shall face other infectious diseases scarlet
fever, erysipelas, yellow fever, typhoid,
measles, diphtheria, hydrophobia, septice-
mia, pneumonia, meningitis, and all the rest
in the same manner.
Again, in diagnosis, the opsonic index is of
great value. Suppose, for example, that
man presents himself to physician with
symptoms that seem to indicate tuberCulo-
sis of some abdominal organ. By the old
methods it is exceedingly difficult to find out
with any certainty whether the man really
has tuberculosis or not, and this uncertainty
of course causes costly delays.
Dut ny Taxing IIle pdlleLt OpSOllC llucA
for tubercle bacilli- surprising, of course,
that it is done ccurately-uncertainty is re-
duced or removed. If his index is normal,
it shows that he has the disease and that his
white corpuscles are being defeated in their
battle with the germs If his index is above
normal, it proves that he has the disease;
but also that his white corpuscles in their
battle with the germs are winning.
In other words, it will be possible, if the
opsonic method is developed to exactness to
determine with accuracy whether man has
disease or not and, if he has, whether he is
getting worse or getting we'll If the latter,
the modern physician does little beyond aid
ing Nature with proper rest and proper food.
If the former he proceeds at once to employ
vaccine or to build up the resisting power
of the body in some other way.
If l have been obscure in parts of this
long explanation, l can plead only that the
subject is one that does not readily lend itself
to popular exposition. There are thousand
details that might be explained; but have
had to pass them by without remark. My
purpose has been merely to show that, as
result of Dr. Wright work and the work of
his assistants in all parts of the world, the
prospect that medicine will one day become
an exact science, like mathematics, has been
vastly increased. That he has discovered a