CHEMOTHERAPY IN BACTERIAL INFECTIONS 289 



the parasites with a single dose, while the therapia fractionata, 

 which is to a certain extent permissible in syphilis, is less apt to be 

 successful. 



CHEMOTHERAPY IN BACTERIAL INFECTIONS. 



While the application of the new science of chemotherapy to the 

 study of protozoan infections has thus led to most brilliant results 

 within the few years of its existence, the thought naturally suggests 

 itself whether some of the bacterial infections also may not be 

 amenable to medicinal treatment upon this basis. A priori, of 

 course, this possibility exists, but it is noteworthy that the only 

 diseases in which a specific cure could be effected in the olden days 

 of medicine were of protozoan origin, i. e., malaria and syphilis, and 

 it is to be feared that the problems are much more complicated in 

 the bacterial infections. There is some evidence to show, however, 

 that here also a new era of treatment may be expected to dawn in 

 the near future and that modern pharmacology when approached 

 from the standpoint of general biology may succeed in accomplishing 

 what the pharmacology of the olden days failed to do. A more 

 intimate knowledge of cell metabolism and above all of cell nutrition 

 will unquestionably carry with it the solution of the problem of 

 bacterial infections. At this place I would only briefly refer to the 

 recent advances in the chemotherapy of pneumococcus infections. 

 Lamar has thus shown in the animal experiment that while a corre- 

 sponding immune serum is incapable of preventing the development 

 of pneumococcus meningitis when introduced subdurally by itself, 

 a mixture of sodium oleate, immune serum and boric acid regularly 

 exerted a more powerful influence than the immune serum alone, 

 and not only prevented the occurrence of infection, but also, when 

 administered separately, arrested the progress of an actually estab- 

 lished infection, and led, often, to the enduring and perfect recovery 

 of the animal. 



On the basis that a certain parallelism in their biological behavior 

 exists between trypanosomes and pneumococci, and that certain 

 quinine derivatives were found to have a trypanocidal effect, Mor- 

 genroth and his collaborators undertook corresponding studies in 

 animal infections with the pneumococcus. As a result of their 

 investigations they found that whereas quinine, hydroquinine, and 

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