994 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



December 1, 191S. 



CONQUERING DISEASE BY MICROBES. 



Dr. L. Keene Hirshberg contributes 

 a most interesting article to the " Word's 

 Work " upon the marvellous progress 

 made during recent years in making 

 mankind invulnerable to the attacks of 

 disease Compared with the wonderful 

 conquest of many maladies by the newer 

 immunity methods, the experts of 

 Caesar and Charlemagne are trite and 

 dull. Greater heroes than these by far 

 as Genner and Koch, Louis Pasteur, 

 Metchnikoff and Von Behring, Kitasato 

 and Sir Almroth E. Wright, Paul Ehr- 

 lich and Simon Flexner. 



Mr. John Burns, speaking at the recent 

 Medical Congress, said: — 



It was interesting: to compare the condi- 

 tion of England and Wales in regard to rate 

 of mortality, during" the three years iqoq-ii 

 with the averag'e of 1871-80. In the three 

 years iqoq-ii, i,52q,o6o deaths occurred in 

 Engfland and Wales. This number was 

 772,811 fewer than would have occurred had 

 the averag-e death-rate of 1871-80 held good. 

 The largest share of this saving occurred in 

 the working years of life, and the gain thus 

 secured to the economic capacity of the 

 nation was gigantic. Nearly half the total 

 saving occurred under the heading of the 

 following diseases : — Small-pox, measles, 

 scarlet fever, whooping-cough: typhus, en- 

 teric, and simple continued fever, jmcrperal 

 fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, rliolera, and 

 tuberculosis. If we took the whole of the 

 thirty-two years 1881 to IQ12, and considered 

 the saving of life during this period, the 

 figures were truly colossal. During these 

 years in England and Wales, 17,083,751 

 dea>ths occurred. Had the relatively high 

 death-rates of 1871-80 continued, 3,042,000 

 more deaths would have occurred. 



In view of the recent small-pox out- 

 break. Dr. Hirshberg's description of 

 vaccination is interesting : — 



ARTIFICIAL IMMUNITY. 



Artificial immunity is concretely explained 

 by cowpox vaccination discovered by Jenner 

 over a century ago. When you are vacci- 

 nated, a mild variety of cowpox is given to 

 you. It is really a harmless and " poor 

 relation " of small-pox. Practically the 

 ultra-microscopic microbe of cowpox. or vac- 

 cinia as it is called, is an attenuated sort of 

 small^pox germ. Once it is scratched, in- 

 oculated, or passed into the body, your blood 

 begins to elaborate a principle which at- 

 tacks and overcomes these faint-hearted 

 small-pox parasites. You are well, but some- 

 thing has been left within you, added to 

 your tissue juices. This is the anti-small- 

 pox chemical which has been enlisted in your 

 bodily army of defence, ready for many years 

 thereafter to overcome the most virulent 

 small-pox germs that may enter your system 



arm 

 have 



and fever 

 made vou 



that 

 im- 



The few hours of sore 

 accompany vaccination 

 mune to small-pox. 



Sir Almroth E. Wright — whose anti- 



great 



suffragette arguments have had 

 prominence lately — has done much re- 

 search work in dermatology. He has 

 discovered a vaccine which produces im- 

 munity from boils, carbuncles, sores, 

 etc., which lasts for several years. 

 Horses, and presumably, men, can be 

 " immunised " entirely against the venom 

 of snakes, such as cobra and rattle- 

 snake. No disease, howe\er, has been 

 dealt a more drastic blow by artifi- 

 cial immunity than typhoid fever — 

 another of Dr. Wright's discoveries. So 

 successful has the innoculation with 

 dead typhoid germs proved, that it is 

 now comptilsory in the Japanese and 

 United States armies. French troops 

 serving in Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, 

 must also be innoculated. 



The results have been most satisfactory. 

 In Eastern ]\Iorocco not one man of the 

 Q62 who were vaccinated contracted enteric 

 fever ; whereas amongst the men who were 

 not vaccinated there occurred nearly four 

 cases in every 100 men, and every seventh 

 man attacked died. In W'estern Morocco, 

 where the conditions were most unfavour- 

 able, the troops being constantly exposed 

 to all the rigours of an arduous campaign, 

 the number of vaccinated men attacked was 

 equivalent to about two in every 10,000 ; on 

 the other hand, amongst those not so pro- 

 tected, 168 cases occurred amongst every 

 1000. 



The official conclusion arrived at is that 

 anti-typhoid inoculation saved in 1012 266 

 rnen, who would otherwise have died of the 

 disease, and over 2000 who would have been 

 attacked by it. 



The dreaded bubonic plague has lost 

 half its terrors since Dr. Haffkine dis- 

 covered a vaccine for this terrible 

 malad)'. Its use gives immunity for 

 long |)eriods. 



Although we know that the fleas that in- 

 fest rats, squirrels, and various rodents 

 transmit this horrible and deadly East 

 Indian malady, and although the efforts ef 

 surgeons are directed toward a Pied Piper 

 method of eliminating rats and the related 

 rodents, it will be upon the newer immunis- 

 ing methods that our lives will depend if 

 the plague flares up about us. Recourse 

 would at once be taken to HaflFkine's plague 

 vaccine or Yersin's serum injections. 



Meningitis is also yielding to the pre- 

 ventive power of vaccination. 



