MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



through a tank containing an antiseptic solution. 

 But no remedy for the disease itself was discovered 

 until Professor Nuttall began experimenting two or 

 three years ago with the drug known as trypan-blue. 

 The investigation was conducted at the experi- 

 mental station at Cambridge, but the tests have since 

 been repeated on a more extensive scale in South 

 Africa; and it would appear that a valuable antidote 

 for this malignant disease has been discovered. An 

 objection to its use exists, however, in the case of 

 animals that are to be slaughtered for beef, in that 

 the drug is a dye which stains the tissues more or 

 less permanently. 



TRANSFORMING THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



Professor Nuttall has given much atention to an- 

 other and even more important tropical disease of 

 which man himself is the direct victim, namely, the 

 plague. British interest is kept constantly stimulat- 

 ed by the prevalence of the plague in India, where 

 almost 6,000,000 deaths occurred from this disease 

 in the decade 1896-1907. The subject is of equal 

 interest from an American standpoint because our 

 own ports are from time to time threatened with an 

 invasion of the plague. Tropical diseases in general 

 are given a new aspect by the work that American 

 physicians have recently accomplished in the region 

 of the Panama Canal. 



As to the latter, almost everyone knows in a general 

 way that a once pestilential region has been made 

 healthful, but comparatively few persons who have 

 not visited the Canal Zone realize how radical has 



246 



