TEE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



91 



lia\i' lici'ii luouiited by the taxidermists. 

 We reproduce illustrations of two of 

 these groups prepared by Mr. Akeley. 

 The museum has been fortunate in 

 adding to its scientific staff Dr. S. W. 

 Williston, the ■\\ell -known paleontolo- 

 gist, who shares his time between the 

 museum and the University of Chicago. 

 The attendance during the year was 

 262,570, a daily average of 719. This 

 is an increase in attendance over the 

 preceding year of 14,000, including 

 2.000, in paid admissions. The museum 

 also conducted series of well attended 

 lecture courses and published seven 

 additions to its scientific series. 



THE TREATMENT OF TYPHOID 

 FEVER. 



The London Times gives an account 

 of a paper by Dr. Macfadyen, of the 

 Jenner Institute, communicated on 

 March 12 by Lord Lister to the Royal 

 Society, which as the writer says is of 

 peculiar interest to the public because 

 it promises an efficient prophylactic 

 and curative treatment for typhoid 

 fever. That dreaded disease is known 

 to depend upon the growth and prop- 

 agation within the human body of the 

 typhoid bacillus. Dr. Macfadyen has 

 found that by crushing the microscopic 

 cells of that bacillus, in a manner to be 

 presently explained, the intracellular 

 juices can be obtained apart from the 

 living organism, and that these juices 

 are highly toxic. By injecting them in 

 small and repeated doses into a living 

 animal its blood serum is rendered 

 powerfully antitoxic and bactericidal. 

 That is to say, it becomes an antidote 

 alike to the living typhoid bacteria and 

 to the poison Avhich may be extracted 

 from them. Animals dosed with the pro- 

 tective serum and subsequently treated 

 with lethal doses of typhoid bacteria 

 were found to enjoy immunity from 

 typhoid fever, while others exposed to 

 the same infection without the previous 

 protective treatment died of the dis- 

 ease. In the same way animals re- 

 ceiving injections of the intracellular 



poison without any living bacteria 

 escaped death only when previously 

 treated with the protective blood serum 

 of an animal which had gone through 

 the immunizing process. Therefore the 

 blood serum in question is a prophylac- 

 tic for typhoid fever (at least, among 

 the inferior animals). But further ex- 

 periments were made by injecting lethal 

 doses of the poison or of the living 

 bacteria, and subsequently injecting the 

 protective serum after half the time 

 required for the toxic dose to kill the 

 animal had been allowed to elapse. In 

 these cases the antidote overtook the 

 poison and the animals recovered. 

 Therefore the serum is curative of ty- 

 phoid fever when already established, 

 as well as protective against typhoid 

 infection. It is thus demonstrated 

 that by the careful inoculation of an 

 animal with the juices of the dead bac- 

 teria, its blood serum can, in the case 

 of typhoid fever, be endowed with the 

 antidotal properties hitherto developed, 

 as in the case of diphtheria, only by 

 inoculation with the living bacteria. It 

 is reasonable to suppose that what 

 holds good in the case of one patho- 

 genic bacterium will also hold good 

 in the case of others. But hypothesis, 

 however reasonable, must be verified 

 by experiment, and the work of ex- 

 tracting and investigating the juices of 

 other bacteria is now being carried on 

 at the Jenner Institute. Should it turn 

 out, as may be expected, that bacterial 

 juices in general react upon the ani- 

 mal organism in the same way as the 

 living bacteria which produce them, the 

 fact can not but have a profound in- 

 fluence upon medical speculation and 

 practise. 



The practical advantages of the dis- 

 covery are great. When, in order to 

 obtain a protective serum, an animal 

 is inoculated with living pathogenic 

 bacteria, the result is always quanti- 

 tatively uncertain. The seed may fall 

 iipon a highly receptive and fertile 

 soil, and may develop effects of unex- 

 pected violence, or it may fall upon 



