206 



DISCOVERY 



That auto-suggestion is successful to different degrees 

 in different persons is well known, and it does not 

 seem unlikely that different kinds of imagery may 

 play a part in bringing about these varying effects. 



That neglect of differences in predominant imagery 

 has prolonged unnecessarily many controversies be- 

 tween psychologists, and others, seems certain. But 

 the valuable and hopeful tendency to study behaviour 

 in detail may lead to further misunderstandings if 

 this elementary consideration is neglected. Mental 

 tests and motion-study, two promising children of 

 psychology, can easily develop the worst features of 

 unmitigated " behaviourism " if they fall into the 

 hands of unrefiective workers. This and other risks 

 wUl be lessened if it be borne in mind that the world 

 of personal experience, expressing itself through be- 

 haviour — of which the use of words is only a par- 

 ticular example — is different for different people. 

 At the back of our words, public property as they are, 

 there is a mental region which in different persons is 

 differently deep and broad, differently filled, and 

 lighted with a different brightness. 



REFERENCES 



W. S. Hunter, Introduction to General Psychology. (University 



of Chicago Press.) 

 R. M. Ogden, Introduction to General Psychology. (Longmans, 



Green & Co.) 

 T. H. Pear, Remembering and Forgetting. (Methuen.) 

 E. B. Titchener. Textbook of Psychology. (Macmillan.) 

 M.' F. Washburn, Movement and Mental Imagery. (Houghton 



Mifflin Company.) 

 R. S. Woodworth. " A Revision of Imageless Thought," 



Psychological Review, 19 15, xxii, pp. 1-27. 



The Treatment of 

 Tuberculosis 



There are two plagues of the human race, well 

 recognised from the earliest times, which up to the 

 present day have scarcely been influenced in any 

 degree by all the efforts of the physician and the re- 

 search-worker. Cancer and tuberculosis still remain 

 among the " captains of the men of death " ; the one 

 a scourge of maturity, the other perhaps the more 

 terrible, since tuberculosis is the disease of vouth and 

 the fullness of life. It seems established that each one 

 of us has at some time suffered from it, and recovered ; 

 and that certain strains among our mixed population 

 are more prone to succumb to its ravages than others. 

 Above all, it is certain that consumption, or tuber- 

 culosis of the lung, is a disease greatly encouraged by 



modern town conditions — bad light, bad ventilation, 

 and bad feeding. By careful attention to these 

 points in a sanatorium, we can restore to health a 

 patient who has come from a slum district, a victim 

 to the disease. And then we can only return him to 

 the conditions which caused his original aUment, and 

 which will cause it again. 



The cure, then, of consumption must always be 

 a secondary object to its prevention. But that pre- 

 vention can only be ensured when, in some distant 

 Utopia, all men live healthy lives in healthy conditions, 

 as much of their own choice as from opportunity, 

 Meanwhile, the problem of treatment is ever present 

 and every new method is of urgent interest. 



Tuberculin 



Professor G. Dreyer has recently published the 

 results of some early applications of a new treatment, 

 which bid fair to open the way to considerable 

 advances. In order to understand the theory of 

 its action, it is necessary to go back to the greatest 

 discovery of recent times in this connection — the 

 isolation of the bacterium of tuberculosis by the 

 German scientist Koch in 1882. It is a very narrow 

 and short thread-like organism, only half the size of a 

 red blood corpuscle, and it is one of a very small group of 

 bacteria which are surrounded by a fatty envelope. 

 The bacillus which causes leprosy is similar in this 

 respect. From the point of view of the bacteriologist 

 who is called upon to identify the organism in a 

 patient, its most important characteristic is that, 

 while it can only be " stained " by very strong dyes, 

 it retains its colour even when acids are poured on it. 



When the bacterium enters the human body it calls 

 up a response of all the tissue which tends to slay it, 

 and to neutralise the poisonous products which it 

 excretes. Koch tried to increase this curative effort 

 of the body b\' means of injections of an extract of 

 the bacterium in glycerine. He prepared a series of 

 such injections, known as tuberculins, which differed 

 from each other in some minor respects. In theory 

 they were identical — he wished to induce the body to 

 produce its own medicine in large quantities, by 

 injecting the poisonous substances which caused the 

 disease. 



The great hopes which were inspired by the intro- 

 duction of this new cure, coming from the first authority 

 on the subject, were destined to disappointment. 

 Many cases were made much worse ; a violent reaction 

 followed injection, including great swelling at the site 

 of injection and an increase in the fever and general 

 symptoms. In fact, the reaction of the body to the 

 bacterium consisted in strangling it by surrounding 

 its colonies with fibrous tissue, and the effect of injec- 



