22 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



authors by these remarkable results that they 

 repeated them, and their further investigations 

 fully confirmed those originally obtained, proving 

 that they were not " un fait exceptionnel." 



Here we have the first steps in the direction 

 of serum-therapy, that new treatment of disease 

 which during the last few years has been so 

 prominently before the public in the cure of 

 diphtheria, tetanus, and other maladies, and for 

 the development of which we owe so much to 

 the labours of Behring, Roux, Kitasato, and other 

 investigators. 



The astounding fact that the blood of animals 

 which have been trained to artificially withstand 

 a particular disease becomes endowed with the 

 power of protecting other animals from that 

 disease is only in the earliest stages of its applica- 

 tion. The results, however, which have already 

 been accomplished are of so encouraging a 

 character that the hope is justified that serum- 

 therapy is destined to revolutionise the treatment 

 of disease. One of the latest uses which has been 

 made of this method of combating disease is the 

 employment of serum for the cure of bubonic 

 plague. During the recent outbreak of plague in 

 India, Yersin, formerly a student and assistant 

 at the Paris Pasteur Institute, was despatched 

 to India to superintend the administration of this 



