Paul Paquin

SPECIFIC MEDICATION IN TUBERCULOSIS OF MAN AND BEAST.

Specific medication in specific maladies is now recognized as the objective point of medical research. Whatever the means employed, the course of events and the processes to that end, the object sought is the all-important question. The men who have, or do now, play a role in the endeavors of medical science, no matter how divergent their opinions may be, no matter how inharmonious their relations, results and manner of work, are only instruments for the accomplishment of a great task, and their personality and differences, as in all processes of evolution, are insignificant and inconsiderable as compared with the achievements sought for the benefit of mankind. Conflicts of intellects are as essential factors of medical evolution as are conflicts of intellects in other

THE EXPERIENCE OF SEVERAL PHYSICIANS WITH SERO-THERAPY IN TUBERCULOSIS.

One year ago, I was honored by the courtesy of thisAssociationwhen I presented the results of my humble laboratory and clinical work in the domain of sero-therapy, as applied to tuberculosis. I had had then only six months of experience in the application of immunized horse blood serum in man. Preceding work had been in animals. Notwithstanding the many decided improvements I then reported and the apparent recoveries, it was yet too early to arrive at a reliable conclusion as to the merits of this form of treatment and the remedy itself. Since then, I have enlisted the aid of many physicians throughout the country, and will take pleasure to-day in reporting, in part, the results of their work, and my own, in proper cases, as well as indicate the failures, unavoidable in many instances by any and all forms of treatment. Many of these physicians have been

TUBERCLE ANTITOXIN OR ANTI-TUBERCULIN.

It is probably to Richet and Hericourt 1 that the principle of sero-therapy is due, because they were first in formulating it fairly in their researches on the micrococcus pyosepticus. All other investigations, due chiefly to the initiative of Behring, have confirmed the almost prophetic possibilities of the claims of these two investigators, particularly on the general activity of serum as a living microbicide power. But it is not on its general antiseptic property that the therapeutic value of serum rests, for it is inconstant. It rests on a physiologic problem, long combated, viz.: phagocytosis, so clearly elucidated by Metchnikoff. The microbicide power of serum is unquestionable. It opposes the development of certain microorganisms, but it does not exercise the preponderant influence of serum in its specific application in disease. The prevention or cure of a microbic disease rests on acquired immunity, and, immunity even natural, is not conferred by

SERO-THERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS; REPORT OF CASES.

In January, 1895, I had the honor of submitting to the St. Louis Medical Society, a report of experiments made at the St. Louis City Hospital and at the Poorhouse in the treatment of 22 cases of pulmonary consumption, all of which were in the second and third stages. This report was rather premature. Had it been possible, it would have been delayed much longer in order to establish better the results of the clinical work done. But circumstances, over which I had not sufficient control, made it imperative for me to present the experiments at that early date. I was highly gratified, however, by the encouragement given me by a few of the many excellent men in this Society, and later on by eminent physicians of other societies, where I had the honor to read papers on the same subject. But, as usual, in such instances, by far the

SERO-THERAPY AND ACCESSORY TREATMENTS OF TUBERCULOSIS.

In January last I had the honor to report to the St. Louis Medical Society, the result of my researches up to that time, on the action of a certain kind of serum in the treatment of tuberculosis. The clinical history of twenty-five cases treated six weeks or three months was given. Seven cases (four with cavities, among whom two had been bed-ridden and given up as absolutely hopeless), were brought to the Medical Society at night, in a weather rendered severe by the fall of a melting snow, and not one coughed during the two hours of their exhibition in a smoky room. It was then demonstrated that all of the twenty-five patients had been decidedly benefited; the least that had been done for a few of them was the arrest of the decline. Only four or five were benefited to this slight degree, while all the others, all