SPECIFIC THERAPY WITH BACTERIOPHAGE SUSPENSIONS 541 



The Shiga bacillus is one of the most toxic organisms known, and it 

 may be assumed that the harmlessness of injections of such a bacterio- 

 phaged culture indicates a general law, whatever may be the bacterium 

 against which the bacteriophage is prepared. In order to test this 

 hypothesis, I injected myself, subcutaneously, with half a cubic centi- 

 meter of Plague-bacteriophage. No reaction, either general or local, 

 followed. Stool examination made twenty-four hours after the injec- 

 tion showed that a bacteriophage, equal in virulence to that injected, 

 was present. The inoculation experiment was repeated with Typhoid- 

 bacteriophage. G. EHava repeated it with the Staphylococcus- 

 bacteriophage, and the same results were secured in both cases. These 

 observations are confirmed in part by another fact, observed in several 

 tests, that following the administration of the bacteriophage, either by 

 injection or by ingestion, the bacteriophage passes in a short time into 

 the intestine. It is eliminated rapidly if it fails to encounter the bac- 

 terium against which it has a virulence, that is to say, in an uninfected 

 individual. On the contrary, it grows and maintains its virulence if it 

 is in contact with this bacterium, a condition which, as we have seen 

 in several instances, is produced in an infected environment among 

 animals which remained healthy, or which had been infected and were 

 recovered. 



After being assured that no harmful effects attended the ingestion of 

 the Shiga-bacteriophage, this treatment was apphed for therapeutic 

 purposes to patients affected with bacillary dysentery.* As in the 

 experimental work, so also here in the clinical tests, the therapy has 

 been limited to those cases in which the etiology of the infection was 

 proved by the isolation of the pathogenic organism, and where, in 

 addition, the virulence of the intestinal bacteriophage was negative 



* These experiments were made with the assistance of M. Nadal, on the service 

 of Dr. Hutinel, at the Hopital des Enfants Malades. 



Tests have also been made in cases of toxic diarrhea of infants, but they will 

 not be discussed here since a conclusion regarding them has not yet been reached. 

 In those cases there is an especial difficulty, for the pathogenic organism is still 

 unknown. It was at first thought that this might be determined through the 

 ability to isolate and cultivate an active race of bacteriophage which might be 

 used for curative purposes. It is indeed probable that there is, not one, but 

 several diarrheas of infants caused by different bacterial types, as the experiments 

 of Nobecourt made during the past few years would also indicate. The solution 

 of the problem is not impossible but it would be necessary to administer to the 

 affected infants a mixture of diverse races of the bacteriophage^, active against 

 the diverse bacterial types capable of inciting the diarrhea. It can readily be 

 conceived that under such circumstances the investigation must be protracted. 



