The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1915-10-26
DISCOVERIES ARE
NOT ACCIDENTAL
Latest Medical Methods Decided After
Years of Study and Practice
BY Experts.

The victories which medical science
has won over disease have in very few
instances, if ever, been decided by a
lucky chance. Only by utilizing the
accumulated knowledge of centuries
and all the information available from
his contemporaries, has the investiga-
tor been enabled to make significant
discoveries leading to the cure or pre-
vention OF disease.
Contributions to the medical science
of today come from the most diverse
sources. The physical chemist de-
termines one fact, the pathologist an
other, the economist and a host of
other specialists, make and record
their observations and the interpre-
tations which they place upon them.
These discoveries must stand trial at
the hands of contemporary workers
along the same lines. If they stand
the test, they become incorporated
into working hypothesis to be applied
practically until new discoveries show
it to be false in fact or Interpretation,
or place it in new light where its
application may be different.
Thus in the ease of the disease
which we know as malaria (meaning
OBSERVATIONS
that the disease prevailed in swampy
regions, and tended to die out when the
region was cultivated and improved.
have stood the test of time and
still stand as facts. The interpreta-
Sion, however, that the disease was
due to poisonous air arising from the
swamps, has been totally disproved.
The fact is now we'll established that
malaria is carried by certain mos
quitoes which breed in the swamps.
Preventive measures based on this fact
are, therefore, definite and purposive,
and being widely and successfully en-
ployed.
The literature in which observations
bearing on medical subjects are re-
ported and thrashed out is of such
enormous volume that no one mind can
compass it. Even with the aid of
periodicals which attempt to collect
and classify this literature in the form
of abstracts, the worker in one single
little branch of a medical speciality
is hard pushed to keep abreast of his
| subject. 1t is like a fusilade of bullets
directed against our common enemy.
" Disease If many a bullet misses
the mark, it is nevertheless true that
now and then some DO hit squarely.
Disease is slowly but surely being
pushed back from trench to trench,
and ultimate victory is only a matter
of time, perseverance, and concerted
action
In Hygienie Laboratory Bulletin No.
101 the L. s. public health service
publishes an article entitled Compile
ment Fixation In tuberculosis, which
neither in title nor in text can be ex-
pected to be Ineligible to the lavman.
1t Is summary of what has been done
up to the present time in developing
a test of the blood serum of persons
and animals afflicted with tuberculosis.
and it is believed that it win be of
value to hospital and laboratory
workers in tuberculosis who NAV not
have time or opportunity to investigate
the status of the subject for them
selves. The methods of applying the
tests have varied much with different
workers, and the results have conse-
quently not been entirely in harmony,
although a strong tendency toward
agreement in fundamentals is noted in
the more recent articles. The tests are
found to be highly specific, that is not
TO react with healthy and non-tuber-
culous persons, and to be compara-
lively free from the objection to some
other tests, that they react with per
sons who at some time have had timber
culosis but have recovered from it.
This article viii have fulfilled its pur-
pose if it shall assist in directing some
OF the bullets of the campaign against
disease toward the spot where they
will do the most good