JANUARY 6, 1891.]

ONCE A WEEK.

11

DR. KOCH'S DISCOVERY.

PROFESSOR BERGMANN SHOWING EFFECT OF LYMPH.

Now THAT experiments with Dr. Koch's famous lymph are not restricted to Germany alone, the interest in the discovery is intensified. Dr. Koch has sent specimens of lymph for his colleagues in London, Paris, Rome, Vienna and New York to test the treatment, and invalids are only too eager to submit themselves as subjects. On all sides, the various Governments propose to erect hospitals and institutes for the "Koch cure," but the discoverer himself is most anxious that the remedy should only be applied after careful examination and with a thorough knowledge of the mode of treatment. He warns medical men that the lymph is deadly in unskilled hands, and that each separate preparation is liable to vary, so that he personally never passes a single specimen without having tried its effect on three animals. Indeed, Dr. Koch's whole time is taken up with superintending the preparation of the precious fluid by Dr. Libbertz, and he only visits a few special patients. On his rare appearance in public the Berliners greet him as a veritable hero, while his photographs are being sold in large numbers. The public demonstrations of the treatment are conducted by Dr. Pfuhl, his son-in-law, Professor Bergmann, and Dr. Virchow. Patients are inoculated before the audience, while others are exhibited who had previously undergone the treatment. The lymph is seen to be a clear, light-brown liquid resembling Marsala, each tube containing material for 5,000 doses, at the rate of about half a cent per dose, so that the expense is not so great as at first announced. But lest imitations should be invented, the German Government intend to purchase the remedy, as the Minister of Public Education declared at a sitting of the Prussian Chamber, where the deputies became so enthusiastic over Dr. Koch that they actually lapsed into applause. The Minister announced that the State will relieve Dr. Koch of his duties to leave him free for research, and will establish a special hospital with a laboratory attached for his use, where the Government will defray all expense. Dr. Koch will instruct qualified officials in the production of the lymph, which at present takes six weeks, and the State will then dole it out to home and foreign hospitals. One Berlin philanthropist has offered the funds for a second institute, and

DR. KOCH'S DISCOVERY. DR. BERGMANN SHOWING EFFECT OF LYMPH.

the example is being followed by private enterprise in other German cities.

The number of experiments now under observation in this city, as we go to press, has grown to 116, divided among nine different city institutions, as follows:

Hospitals.

Cases.

<table><tr><td>Mount Sinai Hospital</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td>Montefiore Home</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>German Hospital</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td>St. Luke's Hospital</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>Bellevue Hospital</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>St. Mark's Hospital</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>Foundling Asylum</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Polyclinic Hospital</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled</td><td>4</td></tr></table>

Total..................................................116

Since the publicity attending the lymph experiments in New York, all the different institutions have been besieged with applications. In many instances the applicants do not communicate by letter with the authorities, but present themselves to the hospitals in person. They come from all over the country, only, however, to meet with deep disappointment.

Five physicians who went to Germany to study the treatment with lymph under Dr. Koch returned on December 22d on the steamship *Spree*, of the North German Lloyd line. They brought enough lymph for 30,000 inoculations, it is estimated, and they also brought some new views on the quantity of lymph that should be injected at each operation.