New-York tribune., 1914-11-22
Recent Discoveries Lead to Belief That Ulh-
mafely Scientists May Be Able to Elin1-
mate Some Forms of Insanity and
Increase Average Of Life.

death visited not a single white home. Among the
i2,4S1 white American men, women and children
In the como not one died. II they had been living
ina New York the names of at least fifteen would
normally have been enrolled the mortuary
lists
The work the accomplishment Of which such
results demonstrate has been done quietly and
unostcutatiously that the general public is un-
conscious Of the service the patient hard working
sclf-sacrifcug, under-paid army Of scientists and
health officers is performing And yet their work
is only in it's infancy. Fresh attention is attracted
TO it just now owing to the fact that the American
Public Health Association is TO open its forty
second annual meeting on Monday evening No
ycmbcr 20 in Jacksonville, Fla.
j. s hardly possible to realize the fact that this
organization dates back TO a period when little
was known about the causes Of cpdemics and
such thing as preventive medicine was hardly
dreamed Of The empirical era in medicine had
not closed Many suspected parasitic or germ
origin. but none knew yet that Louis Pasteur was
az chat moment proving in the field of ferments'
as Of wine and beer that whole section of plants
of the cr,ptocamic order were the causes of the
diseases that we now call zymotic-a name applied
TO diseases following the transfer of germs from
one host to another Indeed, it was only in 1881
that Louis Pasteur became the lion Of the Inter
national Medical Congress, held in London, on
account of his crucial experiment made that year
Of immuriznc twenty-five sheep so that they
proved refractory TO fatal doses of anthrax virus
~ shown I'm twenty-five unprotected sheep. 1t
was only ir 1852 that DR.. Koch opened TO the
world his experimental data demonstrating that
trc BACILLUS tuberculosis was the cause of con-
sumption.
At this .ime the chief defence against epidemics
.f. Of al wa 10 quarantine
along The coast and in case Of outbreak of
serious epidemic in the interior the quarantning
Of The afflicted community, just houses and
auartmcuts are ISOLATED to-day. IT of infected
persons tic public was afraid. They were not TO
be admitted TO the country.
Tho stock OF information regarding germs as
the cause OF disease was supplemented from time
10 time until germs became subject for jokes.
The u.cro-orcanisms themselves were sighted and
identified Without the use of anne dyes knowl-
edge of the causes of many epidemics would be
ncch less than it is, for some Of the organisms
can be named only through their reaction to a dye.
The stain which hey take is their tag. The debt
Of medicine to the coal tar industry is therefore
great. 1t has been greatly aided by increased
knowledge Of mediums Of culture
Following the d covcry Of the part the bacillus
plays in the spread of disease, it was found that
serums could be prepared which would produce a
measure Of immunity in the of certain dis
cases and cure in others. For instance, it has
been found possible to immunize men from ty-
rhod fever. In the Spansh-American War the
real enemy Of the American soldiers disease.
In 1912 12OC0 American regulars were encamped
in Texas for five months. In the course Of that
time there was not a single case Of typhoid, and
the sick rate was lower than in any other camp
the army has ever established. This freedom
from disease was attributed to typhoid vaccina-
tion and tho application Of recently acquired
knowledge of sanitation. And now we have re-
ports of the isolation i'm Europe Of the germ Of
cangreue and the preparation of a serum which
viii help toward the elimination Of amputations
and deaths in wartime due 70 this cause. One