Evening star., 1925-01-25
TUBERCULOS|SCU CURE
IN FEW YEARS SEEN
U. S. Expert Says Research
on Wide Scale Will Bear
Fruit Soon.

The present generation will SCI
tuberculosis cured by the ordinar,
physician as a result of researche
now being conducted in several of tht
large medical laboratories of tn,
country according to the prediction
made yesterday by DR.. william
Charles White, consultant in tubercu
1osis to the United States Public
Health Service and chairman Of th'
National tuberculosis Association!
committee on medical research.
In this task of determining tht
cause and effect Of tubercIe bacillu!
snd methods by which 1t may be
eradicated. DR.. Whites committee i!
receiving the painstaking co-opera-
ton of great commercial laboratories
and in several of the medical univer-
stiles of the country the most skilled
scientists. chemists and anatomists
are deYoting their time to pursuing
their researches, confident that eventu-
ally the mastery of the white plague
will result
Seeks Germ History.
Il have no doubt that the work we
are carrying on in this field" Dr
White said, ito get a better under
standing of the history of this bacil-
luS in the body will see in our gen
grafton physicians able to cure by
their own efforts, rather than by
trusting to nature and the slow and
uncertain method Of today.
II would he foolhardy,' DR.. White
added. "to predict the nature OF the
cure in man. l feel sure. however
it will not be by vaccination. 1t will
more likely be by something that in
terferes with the relation existing be-
tween the bacillus and its host, the
opitheliod cell, and its collection of
these TO form the tubercIe.
In cattle l believe the process will
be by vaccination and by pasteuriza-
tjon of food products and not by the
fearfully wasteful method of con-
demnatiou and destruction of the
present time.
Dr.. White said that the past 90
years Of tuberculosis work have been
devoted to education apd prevention
propaganda. and the Nation has neg
Iected the effort Of endea voring to
lind out more of the disease itself.
Medical science, he said. is now turn
ing its attention to determining the
relation of the tubercle bacillus to the
body.
Associated with DIR. White on the
National tuberculosis Association re-
search committee are DR.. Allan
Krause, associate professor of medi-
cine of Johns Hopkins University; Or.
Paul a. Lewis of the Rockefeller In
statute at Princeton and DR. Charlie
]. Hatfield, director of Phipps Insti-
tute for tuberculosis at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania.
Program Welt Planned.
DR.. White said that the work of the
committee has progressed to the stage
where the research facilities of the
country are now engaged in a carefully
planned program of studies, out of
which he hopes will result accurate
knowledge of the disease with an abso-
lutte remedy.
Tuberculosis Dr. White said. "is
probably the most difficult problem in
modern medicine. While we know more
of the tubercle bacillus than of any
other disease germ. we know little of
its parasitism; that is, Of its intimate
symbolic existence within the cells Of
its host, where most of its life history
is pursued.
Specific cures for disease. as we
know them today, have come to us
mainly along two channels; first, by
revelation, often in the most unexpect-
ed places. and secondly, by the steady
progress of the human mind i'll the
laboratory
Describing the scope of the research
work now in progress. DIR. White said ::
First for the chemical analysis of
the tubercle bacillus and its products
we have enlisted the great commercial
laboratories Of Parke, Davis & Co. and
Mulford & Co, with the best chemists of
the universities of Yale and Chicago
For the study Of the reason for
the curious position of tuberculosis
IN in If =,
lungs and the lower parts of cattle
lungs, the anatomical department OF
the University of Wisconsin is en-
gagged.
ITO ascertain the relation of cattle
tuberculosis to human tuberculosis,
studies are being made in the Phipps
Institute Of the University of Penn
sylvania.
Universities Aid.
For the determination Of X-ray
uormals, the universities of Johns
Hopkins, Cincinnati and PennsyIva-
MIA are contributing.
'How intricate the problem is few
realize. The tubercle bacillus is a
parasite, growing within and at the
expense of the animal body, but in a
particular cell Of that body. This
cell we have known for 40 years rs
multiply this cell multiplies and col
lects around them and makes the
tnbercle.
1T is only within year we have
known something of the origin of this
cell and only within a few months
that we have known how to increase
or lower its number in the body. This
knowledge has come by the brilliant
work of two anatomists in Johns
Hopkins University, Drs. Sabin and
Cunningham.
Even more surprising is the new
research on the scar tissue by which
nature cures tuberculosis. Here again
is a wonderful story. A biologist.
perhaps the most wonderful in Amer
ica, Prof. Ross Harrison of Yale, dis
covered the method of crossing bits
Uf' embryo tissue IN the test tube
which has been so fruitful in our
understanding of life and death Prof.
Harrison and DR.. BaitselI, a co-work-
err are turning their endeavors to a
study of the tuberCle.
t'"The committee hopes to arrange
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