THE NONSPECIFIC AGENTS 37 



Intramuscular injections are recommended for common use. He 

 also gave small doses of digitalis a few days preceding the injection 

 in severely toxic cases. 



Coley's Fluid. This consists of fluid culture products of the strep- 

 tococcus and pyocyaneus. It is used particularly in sarcomata in 

 which it was usually followed by a severe systemic reaction and some 

 evidence of digestion and autolysis of the tumor, but never to the ex- 

 tent of complete eradication of the neoplasm. 



Pneumococcus Autolysate. Among bacterial autoly sates which 

 were prepared on a specific basis but which in all probability were 

 effective, when therapeutically active, as nonspecific agents were the 

 pneumococcus autolysates of Rosenow, recommended for use in lobar 

 pneumonia. 



Phylacogens (Schafer's Vaccine.) These represented bacterial 

 growth products of a number of bacteria first prepared by Schafer 

 and used with some success in arthritis. They were later prepared on 

 a commercial scale and marketed under the trade name of 

 Phylacogens. Inasmuch as the method of preparation and exact com- 

 position is not known, the reaction merely a nonspecific one, other 

 and less expensive agents will be found more satisfactory and more 

 easily controlled. 



COLLOIDAL METALS 



Colloidal metals were perhaps first used as therapeutic agents by 

 Crede in 1895. Crede used silver preparations on the assumption 

 that they were actively streptococcocidal, and they were introduced 

 by him in the treatment of streptococcus infections. The range of 

 application was, however, soon extended to septic conditions in gen- 

 eral (it was no longer considered a specific streptococcicide but to pos- 

 sess heterobactericidal properties) and latterly it has been surmised 

 that its usefulness depended not on its particular chemical structure 

 but on properties of colloidal metals in general which produced 

 the nonspecific reaction and were therefore typical ergotropic agents. 

 Earlier workers had followed Crede in the interpretation of the method 

 of action (Marquis dos Santos and Alphonse Pinto) ; Albrecht sur- 

 mised that the catalytic property of the finely dispersed metals 

 might have a definite relation to the therapeutic effect; while later 

 the reactive leukocytosis that followed the injections was studied 

 and held responsible for the therapeutic result. (Dunger, Sahli, Bruntz 

 and Spillmann.) 



Bonnaire and Kausch both noted and emphasized the important 

 fact that following the intravenous injection a chill, fever and leu- 

 kocytosis were commonly observed. This febrile reaction, just as 

 in other nonspecific reactions, varies considerably with the disease 

 process. In sepsis Kausch noted that the high temperature dropped 

 promptly by lysis, whereas afebrile cases, such as carcinoma, responded 



