THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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xrt 



Nature's Defenses against Disease. It 



is maintained by Dr. C. Theodore Williams, 

 of the Hospital for Consumptives, Brompton, 

 England, that in most of the specific modes 

 of treating consumption, particularly in the 

 antiseptic modes, the greatest factor of all 

 the resisting power of the organism to dis- 

 ease is ignored, and that it is to this that 

 the physician should lend his aid and sup- 

 port. For if his means are effectual he can 

 ward off disease, or if a patient has been 

 already attacked he can limit its inroads and 

 possibly arrest it altogether. The history of 

 the treatment of phthisis shows that life in 

 the pure air, judicious exercise, light, nour- 

 ishing dietary, and such aids as cod-liver oil 

 and tonics have effected more than all the 

 bacillicide treatment put together. These all 

 act on the old principle of helping Nature to 

 help herself and reducing the vulnerability 

 of the patient to attack. The weapons of 

 resistance which Nature lends the human 

 body are the leucocytes or phagocytes, stud- 

 ied by Metchnikoff, which absorb the bacilli 

 and destroy their energy. Another destroyer 

 of bacilli is the serum of certain animals ; 

 and a third method of destruction is seen in 

 the process of fibrosis, which is largely pres- 

 ent in chronic consumption. In a well-or- 

 ganized, well-developed, and therefore well- 

 protected person the bacilli are overwhelmed 

 by the irruption of phagocytes at the point 

 of entry, and immunity is the result. In one 

 of less protective power they may enter and 



be carried along by the lymphatics to the 

 lymphatic glands, where they undergo diges- 

 tion and destruction. When, however, the 

 tubercle bacilli gain an entrance, and settle, 

 and destroy the tissues, as in the case of the 

 lung, the most that can be hoped for is that 

 the progress may be obstructed by fibrous 

 growth, or that, through developing and ex- 

 panding the healthy lung in the neighbor- 

 hood, pressure may be brought to bear on the 

 diseased portion, inducing a drying process 

 incompatible with the life of bacilli. This 

 process is encouraged by living at high alti- 

 tudes. The problem of treatment resolves 

 itself principally into means to increase the 

 number and activity of the phagocytes and 

 thus render more probable the destruction 

 of the tubercle bacilli. Moreover, whatever 

 improves the quality of the phagocytes would 

 also improve and enrich the blood and lymph 

 serum, of which they form a principal part. 

 To this quality the author attributes the 

 virtue of cod-liver oil to which he has 

 found, he says, no substitute comparable. 

 Sunshine and pure air are the best bacilli- 

 cides. At Davos and St. Moritz phthisical 

 patients almost invariably sleep with open 

 windows throughout the winter, when the 

 thermometer not uncommonly registers 4 

 F., or 36 below the freezing point, care, of 

 course, being taken to heat the room with 

 stoves, to provide plenty of blankets and 

 coverlets, and to see that the current of ex- 

 ternal air is not. directed on to the patient, 



