Arizona state miner., 1925-03-07
White Plague
Cure Is Assured

timOre; DIR. Paul A. Lewis Of the
Rockefeller institute at Princeton, and
Dr. Charles J. Hatfield, director Of
Phipps Institute for tuberculosis at
the University Of Pennsylvania.
Tuberculosis" Doctor White said,
probably is the most difficult prob
lem in modern medicine. While we
know more of the tubercle bacillus
than of any other disease germ, we
know little of it's parasitism, that Is,
of its intimate symbolic existence
within the cells of the lungs, 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 unex-
pected places, and secondly, by the
steady progress of the human mind in
the laboratory. To the natives Of
Peru came first the knowledge of the
curative value of cinchona bark, from
which we obtain our quinine in the
cure of malaria. Similarly to the ma
tives of Brazil came first the knowl-
edge that ipecac, from which we get
our emetine, would cure dysentery.
From the laboratory source we have
salvarsan, diphtheria antitoxin, In
sulin, carbon tetrachloride and many
others, and all are purified by means
of special action of other substances"
Scope of Research Work.
Describing the scope of the research
work now in progress Doctor White
said:
First for the chemical analysis of
the tubercle bacillus and It's products
we have enlisted the great commercial
laboratories Of Parke, Davis & Co. and
Mulford & Co., with the best chem
lists of the universities of Yale and
Chicago.
"For the study of the reason for the
curious position of tuberculosis in the
body, in the tops Of human lungs and
the lower parts Of cattle lungs, the
anatomical department Of the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin at Madison is en-.
gagged.
"To ascertain the relation Of cattle
tuberculosis to human tuberculosis
studies are being made in the Phipps
institute of the University of Penn
sylvania.
For the determination of X-ray
normals the experts in the Johns Hop
kins, Cincinnati and Pennsylvania
universities are contributing their help.
'The tubercle bacillus" Doctor
White explained, grows at the ex.
pense Of the human or animal body
but in a particular cell Of that body.
This cell, for 40 years, has been called
the epitheloid. AS the bacilli multi
ply, cells of this type multiply about
them and form the tubercles, or nodes,
found in affected lungs.
1T is only within a year that 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 it's number in the
body. This knowledge has come by
the brilliant work of two anatOmists
in Johns Hopkins university-Doctors
Sabin and Cunningham. They have,
during the last year, devoted all their
vast knowledge Of the human body to
the study of the tubercle bacillus In
relation to this cell. The means of
modifying the cell has come from a
study Of three other diseases: malta
fever. a disease primarily Of goats
but to which man is susceptible and
caused by the bacillus militensis; in.
fectiOus abortion Of cattle, and kala-
aZaar, disease Of man and rodents
in the East. Each one of these dis
eases gives a different reaction in the
body on the part of the cells con-
cerned in tuberculosis.
Story Told by Scars.
Even more surprising Is the new
research on the scar tissue by which
nature cures tuberculosis. Here again