NEW IXVESTIGATIOXS OX RICKETS 

 AND MAdlOZAMIA. 



By JOSEPH LAUTERER, M.D., J.P. 



[Rmd Jiejarc the Hoi/al Soiictij of (Juccu.shnul, '20th Awiust, 1898.1 



'jGreat difficulties have been and are still met with in investiga- 

 tting the nature of disorders of the human body. During the 

 last two decenniums a vast and altogether astonishing progress 

 ■has been made in recognizing the true cause of many diseases 

 ifor which the science of former times could not account at all. 

 When I was attending the medical schools nobody believed in 

 the possibility of transmitting tuberculosis from one individual 

 to another, and when I was travelling in Norway in 1879 the high- 

 ifist authorities there would not believe that leprosy was a contagious 

 disease. The presence of microbes, revealed by new methods of 

 investigation, that is to say by staining and oil immersion has 

 put the question in an altogether dilierent light, the wonderfully 

 •quick propagation of the Schizomycetes and especially of the 

 J3acteria by longitudinal section having been known from the 

 researches of Tulasne and of my renowned teacher De Bary. 

 New ways were looked for in con(juering the diseases and they 

 were found. The anti-toxic treatment, started in France and 

 •Germany, gave results acknowledged especially in diphtheria. 

 Mistakes occurred of course here and there like in all human 

 investigations. A special virtue for instance was supposed to be 

 contained in the serum of the giandula thyreoidea, as it was 

 found most efiective in the treatment of Struma, Myxoedema, 

 .and even in secondary Syphilis, and only two years ago it was 



