l82 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



April 1, 1913. 



organism, although surrounded on all 

 sides by the tubercle bacilli, is gifted 

 with elaborate means of defending it- 

 self from the disease. 



It has been shown that almost the 

 whole population of European towns 

 has at one time or other been attacked 

 by the tubercle bacillus, but that in most 

 cases the organism has been able to de- 

 stroy the bacillus. Young children up 

 to two years shown no signs of the 

 bacillus, but contract it immediately 

 after that age. 



TREATMENT. 



Certain diseases bring immunity from 

 tuberculosis such as scrofula, lupus, and 

 glands. These diseases, as it were, act 

 as an unconscious vaccination. He 

 deals with the different methods of 

 treatment : diet, climate, drugs, inocula- 

 tion by tuberculin (Koch's discovery), 

 and by serum and sanatoria. All these 

 methods are useful, but none are in- 

 invariably successful, and it depends on 

 the state of the patient as to which 

 method is the most effective. Isolation 

 of a tuberculous patient is most essen- 

 tial in order to prevent the spread of 

 the disease. i\ttempts at vaccination 

 have been made, which, with regard to 

 bovine tuberculosis, have been success- 

 ful ; but as the vaccination cannot be 

 obtained except with living bacilli it is 

 impossible to extend the experiments to 

 human beings. 



UNCONSCIOUSLY VACCINATED. 



Owing to the great prevalence of the 

 tubercle bacilli it is remarkable that 

 only one-seventh of the human race die 

 of tuberculosis. This, he maintains, is 

 not due to any innate immunity, but to 

 an immunity acquired by man through 

 being vaccinated unconsciously against 

 serious tuberculosis. That is to say, 

 that there exists m man, besides the viru- 

 lent bacilli, other similar bacilli of at- 

 tenuated virulence which confer im- 

 munity from tuberculosis. 



Figures taken from a memoir of 

 Koch show that tuberculosis is in course 

 of diminution in many countries in 

 Europe. Between 1883 and 1902 the 



following figures show the decrease in 



deaths per 10,000: — 



1883. 1902. 



Pans 44 ... 37 



Hamburg 32 ... 19 



Copenhagen ... 29 ... 15 

 London 21 ... 16 



In Berlin, however, the death-rate in- 

 creased between 1903 and 1906 from 21 

 to 24. 



This general improvement is attri- 

 buted to hygienic measures, which con- 

 sist chiefly in searching out the cases 

 of active tuberculosis in the population 

 and in placing them in hospitals. But 

 the improvement is too large to be due 

 to this cause alone, and Metchnikoff 

 agrees with Roemer in thinking that it 

 is also due to the progressive natural 

 vaccination of the people. 



MIND-CURES. 

 Examining these cures from the scien- 

 tific point of view, T. S. Clouston, in 

 the Q?unterly Review, says that science 

 now includes mind as well as life and 

 matter in the scope of its investigations, 

 and by this means only will humanity 

 derive the full benefits which a study 

 of the effects of mind, acting through 

 the brain, will enable us to effect in cur- 

 ing diseased and abnormal states:- — 



My contention (lie remarks) will be that 

 it has been from sheer want of accurate ob- 

 servation and lack of critical and reasoning 

 capacity, and from reliance on authority, 

 that the facts as to " mind-c\ires " have 

 been misunderstood and misinterpreted, with 

 the result that large numbers of people, 

 otherwise living a rational life, have fol- 

 lowed most hurtful and irrational practices 

 and entertained degrading beliefs in regard 

 to such questions. In even the present 

 state of our physiological, psychological and 

 medical knowledge, imperfect though it is, I 

 maintain that scientific and rational expla- 

 nations can be given of most of such cures, 

 and that no mystical or miraculous views 

 need be held about them by the modern man. 

 We do not deny the existence of these cures; 

 we only deny that they are due to occult, 

 mystical or unexplainable causes, and we 

 emphatically protest against their irrational 

 misinterpretations. We may be ignorant; 

 we need not be credulous. 



THE WONDERFUL BRAIN. 



The human brain is by far the most won- 

 derful piece of organic living mechanism in 

 Nature. It is the subtlest combination of 

 machinery and of force for the production 

 of the most remarkable results which evolu- 

 tion during the countless seons of its pro- 



