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BACTERIOLOGY.

BY B. MEADE BOLTON, M. D.,

Director of the Department of Bacteriology, Hoagland Laboratory, Brooklyn.

PROTECTIVE INOCULATIONS.

Pasteur was the first to make extensive experiments with a view of obtaining vaccines for protective inoculations for various infectious diseases. He was led to these experiments by Jenner's discovery of vaccination for small-pox. But it is evident that Pasteur's inoculations differ from vaccination for small-pox, for Pasteur uses cultures of the micro-organism, causing the very disease for which he inoculates. In vaccination for small-pox, as is well known, the infectious material of a disease similar to, but not identical with, small-pox is used. Pasteur's inoculations are therefore rather to be compared to the inoculations formerly in use, where small-pox virus was used to inoculate with. The object Pasteur seeks to obtain is to so modify the infectious material that it will produce only a mild form of the disease in question. This problem is very difficult of solution, and the most serious obstacle is the variable susceptibility, not only of different races of animals, but also of the different individuals of the same species: infectious material which causes a mild attack of the disease in one animal sometimes-exceptionally, it is true-causing death in another animal of the same species. Although this difficulty has not yet been overcome, the possibility of attenuating infectious material, so that it will produce only a mild form of disease, is well established. As yet these inoculations are of more interest from a scientific than from a practical point of view, at least in human medicine, and the practical utility of protective inoculations in animals is still an open question.

Pasteur found that the artificial attenuation of pathogenic microorganisms can be effected in two ways: In the first place, by the use of some agent injurious to the bacteria, such as heat, chemical agents, etc.; these cause, according to Flügge, a degeneration of the organisms, and the virulence returns in a longer or shorter time when the organisms are again placed under favorable conditions. In the second place, attenuation may be effected by cultivating the organisms for some length of time under unusual conditions-for example, in the bodies of animals not susceptible to natural infection. The attenuation obtained in this way seems to be much more durable than that obtained by the first method, and not so likely to be lost by cultivating the attenuated cultures under normal conditions. Besides the methods of

inoculation with attenuated cultures, it has been attempted to render animals immune by inoculations of the products of the growth of bacteria-i. e., the so-called ptomaines.

The first disease for which Pasteur obtained attenuated virus was chicken-cholera. He found that cultures which had stood for several months exposed to the air-i. e., merely plugged with cotton-had weakened in virulence. These old cultures produced on inoculation. only a local abscess, which ended in resolution in a few weeks, but the chickens so inoculated were found to be protected from subsequent attacks and also from the disease by inoculations of virulent material. Pasteur attributed the weakened virulence to the action of the air, for he found that, in cultures of chicken-cholera which were sealed up, the full virulence was retained.

Pasteur's next successful experiments on attenuation were made with anthrax, or malignant pustule. The method of attenuation in this case was different from that for chicken-cholera. Cultures of anthrax bacilli were grown at 42° to 43° C., and it was found that these cultures were much less virulent than cultures grown at lower temperatures, and that animals inoculated with them were for the most part protected. Pasteur's inoculations for anthrax have been tested on a very large scale by different experimenters with various results.

The third disease for which Pasteur obtained vaccines was rouget du porc (swine-erysipelas), an infectious septicemia causing great ravages among the hogs in France. The method of attenuation in this case is to inoculate rabbits with virulent cultures. It is found that the micro-organism becomes attenuated after having passed through the body of a rabbit. Cultures obtained by inoculation from rabbit to rabbit finally become so attenuated that they will no longer kill. cultures attenuated in this way protect hogs when inoculated.

But

Kitt has put all these methods of inoculation to the test. He found that vaccines for anthrax obtained direct from Pasteur were not capable of protecting the sheep he inoculated. He then inoculated guinea-pigs with the vaccine, and obtained cultures from these guinea-pigs which produced a fatal anthrax in sheep. The organisms had increased in virulence in passing through the guinea-pigs, and, although these cultures were virulent for sheep, they rendered cattle immune. But the fact that Pasteur's vaccines were sufficiently powerful to protect the sheep which Pasteur inoculated and were not capable of protecting the sheep which Kitt experimented with, shows the practical difficulty of obtaining cultures of just the right strength. Krajewski's results with the same vaccines were also unfavorable. Hess obtained rather more favorable results Kitt found Pasteur's observations on chicken-cholera to be correct, but strongly advises against the use of vaccination. He

points out that the excreta from inoculated fowls is virulent for other animals, and, as in the case of anthrax and other bacterial diseases, the organism increases in virulence when passed through the body of susceptible animals.

(To be continued.)

PHYSIOLOGY AND EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTICS.

BY GEORGE T. KEMP, PH. D.,

Associate Director of the Department of Physiology and Experimental Therapeutics,
Hoagland Laboratory, Brooklyn.

SYZYGIUM JAMBOLANUM: A NEW REMEDY FOR DIABETES.

Dr. C. Graeser, of Bonn (Experimentelle Untersuchungen über Syzygium Jambolanum gegen künstlichen Diabetes), came in contact with this plant (tree) in Java, where the natives use the fruit and bast as a remedy for diarrhoea and diabetes. (In Europe it goes by the name of jambul.) He has made a study of the physiological properties of the extract of the fruit, and finds that there are no deleterious properties which would contra-indicate it. He also studied its effect on diabetes produced artificially, by the method of von Mehring, viz., by giving phloridzin. In some cases he gave phloridzin first, and, after diabetes was marked, gave his extract of jambul; in others he gave the drugs combined.

In the first class of experiments he found that jambul reduced the sugar in the urine, in some cases ninety per cent. and nearly always more than half.

In the second class of experiments he found that phloridzin alone gave 5.89-12.45 grms. of sugar, while combined with jambul the corresponding figures were 1.50-2.91. Even in large doses, jambul produces no injurious effects, and the author recommends it for clinical trial.

He also gives a reference to a review of a case reported by Mahomed (Practitioner, 1888, p. 416), where jambul was given to an old diabetic patient, with the result that sugar disappeared from the urine at the end. of a week, but returned upon discontinuing the drug. The patient was then kept upon jambul for several months, after which diabetes. did not return upon stopping the administration of the drug, and had not returned up to the time of reporting the case, about a year and a half thereafter.

A NEW DIURETIC.

The Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie (Dec. 6, 1889, pp. 676680) contains two articles on the use of the bark of sambucus nigra as a diuretic: "Du sureau comme médicamente diurétique," by M. Georges Lemoine, of Lille; and "Recherches sur l'action physiologique de l'écorce de tige de sureau," by MM. Combemale et Dubiquet, of Lille. The last-named gentlemen refer to the dictionaries of Mérat, Sens, and Dechambre, and to the recent clinical observation of Bastaki, of Bucharest-all of whom claim diuretic properties for this drug-and have made a careful study of the same in the laboratory.

They have worked with the first and second barks together, and with each of them separately. A decoction of the whole bark produces a marked diuresis in dogs and guinea-pigs. The urine is extraordinarily clear, and the diuresis lasts about four hours; the temperature falls, and there is a diminution of the pulse and of the respiration.

A decoction of the first bark alone produces diuresis, but not so marked as that of the whole bark, and far less marked than a decoction of the second bark.

On making a decoction of the second bark, the authors found that a volatile principle was given off, and this bark they studied both in decoction and infusion. The decoction was found to have marked diuretic properties, being two to three times stronger than a decoction of the whole bark. The temperature rose one-half degree, C. (=nearly one degree, F.), in thirty minutes, and then slowly fell to a few tenths below normal; and the pulse fell gradually twenty-four beats in five hours.

When an infusion of the second bark is given instead of a decoction, the diuresis was found to be less marked and only to occur after a longer interval after the administration of the drug. New symptoms, however, appeared in vomiting and diarrhoea, which seemed to be the predominating effect of the infusion.

The vomiting began about thirty minutes after giving the drug, was without effort, and did not occur at short intervals. When not obscured by food, the vomit appeared to be mostly a whitish mucus. The diarrhoea lasted several hours, was purely intestinal, and, after the evacuation of the solid contents of the intestines, the fæces were soft, without being watery, brown, and of a bilious aspect; the temperature and pulse are affected as by the decoction. The day after the experiment the animal was always perfectly well. These experiments would appear to show, therefore, that the second bark of sambucus nigra was the most effective, and that it contained, among other things, a volatile principle which produced vomiting and diarrhoea, and a non-volatile principle which

is a powerful diuretic, and the drug recommends itself for clinical trial.

M. Georges Lemoine, of Lille, made this trial, and gives the following observations: The drug was always employed as a decoction of the second bark, prepared by boiling a handful of the fresh bark (old bark loses its strength) in a litre of water, and giving to the patient a half litre to one and a half litres a day. He finds the quantity of urine to be increased fr m 400 c. c. to 1,500 and 2,000 c. c., and in some cases as much as 3,500 c. c. He has obtained his best results in albuminuria from nephritis, and has cured albuminuric patients having general anasarca, œdema of the lung, and hydrothorax. It acts well in ascites which accompanies tubercular peritonitis in children, but has little effect on ascites due to cirrhosis of the liver. He also obtained six watery stools a day from his patients, and points out this additional advantage, in removing the excess of fluid by the bowels as well as by the kidneys. Lemoine fails to find the same action on the heart of man

He says:

that Combemale and Dubiquent found in their animals. "This is not a cardiac drug, but essentially a diuretic, and owes its properties to an action upon the renal epithelium."

CORRESPONDENCE.

WEIGERT HOT AIR TREATMENT.

The following communication was received from the late Dr. Cary just before his death, with the request that it should be published: To the Editor:

In the "Criticism of the Weigert Hot-Air Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis," printed in your April issue, there occurs an error of fact and position in the closing sentence of the fourth paragraph of the recapitulation. It should read: Recent advices from Germany inform us that by accurate measurement the actual intrapulmonary temperature is DEPRESSED to 1°.

This statement was intended as a foot-note confirmatory of the forecast of the, as printed, preceding part of the paragraph, the fact not having come to our knowledge until several months after writing the "Criticism."

By making this correction you will oblige,

Yours respectfully,

WALES L. CARY.

826 Lafayette Ave.

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