578 THE BACTERIOPHAGE AND ITS BEHAVIOR 



procedure, and many authors consider it specific. I hope that this will 

 presently be true for plague.* 



In order to properly close this text, perhaps I should draw some 

 general broad conclusions. Possibly I should discuss the very material 

 changes in our concepts brought about by our knowledge of the bacterio- 

 phage protobe and bacteriophagy, particularly in that which concerns 

 pure Biology and in that which deals with Innnunity. I deem it best, 

 however, to refrain from discussing these phases of the subject that this 

 text may not be unreasonably lengthened, for if we were to enter into this 

 field a second volume would be necessary. It so happens, indeed, that 

 these are precisely the general considerations which have been made the 

 subject of a recently published book, — ^"Immunity in Natural Infecti- 

 ous Disease," — to which I would refer the interested reader. 



* As was remarked some two years ago by an English medical journal, in the 

 prophylactic and therapeutic use of the bacteriophage there is a vast field for 

 commercial exploitation. This has already begun. I can not witness it without 

 apprehension, and it is very desirable that commercial products be very rigidly 

 controlled. It would be far better if scientific Institutes, following the example 

 of the Institute Oswaldo Cruz, would prepare the suspensions of the bacteriophage 

 destined for use as a therapeutic agent. 



Too often, commercial firms mislead both physicians and the public by clever 

 quotations (clever in the sense that they avoid conflict with the law) tending 

 to make it appear that such and such a scientist supervises their products, or 

 even controls them. I now declare that I am, and always will remain, a stranger 

 to all commercial enterprises. I may go even further in this direction and state 

 that every time that I have treated a patient it has been done solely from a 

 scientific motive. 



