190 



THE STORY OF GERM LIFE. 



can see also the logic of the small dose as com- 

 pared to the large dose. A small dose of a 

 drug may serve as a stimulant for the lagging 

 forces, while a larger dose would directly repress 

 them or produce injurious secondary effects. As 

 soon as we recognise that the aim of medicine is 

 not to destroy the disease but rather to stimulate 

 the resisting forces of the body, the whole logic 

 of therapeutics assumes a new aspect. 



Physicians have understood this, and, espe- 

 cially in recent years, have guided their practice 

 by it. If a moderate dose of quinine will check 

 malaria in a few days, it does not follow that 

 twice the dose will do it in half the time or with 

 twice the certainty. The larger doses of the 

 past, intended to drive out the disease, have been 

 everywhere replaced by smaller doses designed 

 to stimulate the lagging body powers. The mod- 

 ern physician makes no attempt to cure typhoid 

 fever, having long since learned his inability to 

 do this, at least if the fever once gets a foothold ; 

 but he .turns his attention to every conceivable 

 means of increasing the body's strength to resist 

 the typhoid poison, confident that if he can thus 

 enable the patient to resist the poisoning effects 

 of the typhotoxine his patient will in the end re- 

 act against the disease and drive off the invading 

 bacteria. The physician's duty is to watch and 

 guard, but he must depend upon the vital powers 

 of his patient to carry on alone the actual battle 

 with the bacterial invaders. 



ANTITOXINES. 



In very recent times, however, our bacteriolo- 

 gists have been pointing out to the world certain 



