I (J The Microscoi^, 



upon animals. He selected the guinea pig as a subject, because 

 of all animals this is the most liable to tuberculosis when in- 

 oculated. He tried all the substances mentioned in the forego- 

 ing list upon the guinea pigs thus rendered consumptive, and he 

 observed that although the action of these substances was so 

 remarkable in the test tube, there was no apparant result when 

 they were applied to the animal. All the inoculated guinea pig& 

 died of consumption. Without being discouraged, however, he 

 undertook a second series of experiments, also upon living ani- 

 mals. He succeeded in discovering a substance (and it is here 

 that the secret begins) which, active in the test tube, preserves 

 its action when it is transferred to the body of the animal. 

 Upon the second series of guinea pigs which have been inoculated , 

 the increase of the bacilli was stopped as soon as the substance 

 was administered, and all were cured. Here it is necessary to 

 rectify an error which the journals have spread. It is known 

 that he made his experiments upon a large number of animals, 

 and every day one of this number disappeared, and it was sup- 

 posed that it was one of those that had been inoculated. No, it 

 was simply that he killed one from day to day because he 

 wished to follow all the stages that were reached. In all the 

 autopsies it Avas found that the lesion Wiis stopped as soon as the 

 substance was injected, no matter what stage of development the 

 disease had reached. He was, therefore, able to let a number of 

 ex-consumptives live, and they are to-day in a perfect state of 

 health. 



It was after these two series of investigations, which were so 

 long, that have arrived at a definite result, he was enabled, be- 

 fore the Congress of Physicians held in Berlin in August last-, to 

 make his first communication, which caused so remarkable a 

 sensation. This is what he said in concluding his remarks : 

 " My researches are not vet entirely finished, and I am only able 

 to affirm one thing, viz., that the guinea pig, w^hich is, as every 

 one knows, liable to consumption, becomes entirely free from it 

 the moment that it has absorbed the substance, and from that 

 moment the disease is arrested and its progress stopped, what- 

 ever may have been the stage previously reached, and that also 

 without the constitution being in any way impaired. I am 

 only able to draw one conclusion from these researches, viz., the 

 ])Ossibilities which exist from this day of paralyzing absolutely 



