MASTERING THE MICROBE 



now, thanks to the new vaccine treatment which 

 Sir Almroth Wright and his associates have elaborat- 

 ed. The essential idea of this treatment is a curious 

 one. It is to let any given individual render himself 

 immune to a given disease by developing antidotal 

 bodies in his own system. The development of such 

 antidotes is brought about by inoculating the patient 

 with limited quantities of disease germs that have 

 been killed by heating. 



The earliest important application of this idea was 

 made by Professor Wright in connection with pre- 

 ventive inoculations against typhoid fever. It had 

 been suggested by Mr. Haskine that preventive in- 

 oculations might be attempted along Pasteurian 

 lines, that is to say, with living germs ; but this 

 seemed hazardous. Then Professor R. Pfeiffer show- 

 ed that the subcutaneous injection of a heated culture 

 of typhoid germs produced a "specific agglutination 

 reaction" in man ; and this at once gave Wright a 

 clue which he followed up with wonderful tenacity, 

 and with the ultimate effect of supplying medical 

 science with a new and effective therapeutic weapon. 



"The physician of the future will be an immuni- 

 zator," Wright boldly prophesied when he made his 

 first announcement of experiments with typhoid in- 

 oculations in 1902. In the intervening decade, the 

 prophecy has been so carried toward fulfillment that 

 an increasing number of conservative physicians all 

 over the world will echo the words of Dr. William 

 H. Thompson, who says of what he terms the new 

 science of Vaccine Therapy: "The more I see of this 

 recent recourse against microbic infections, the more 



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