70 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [March, 



disappointments, there will be a reaction ; but that a new epoch is dawn- 

 ing upon our science there can be no reasonable doubt." 



The Ofnaha Clinic says : " We fail to find the smallest excuse why- 

 American physicians should allow their unfortunate patients to dare 

 the ocean and the weather to seek relief at the hands of this remedy at 

 this stage of its use." 



The A?nerican Practitioner and News heads its remarks upon the 

 subject, " The Consumption Cure Craze." 



The N. T. Medical yonrnal s^ys : " The main question of the cu- 

 rative efficacy of the Koch liquid seems hardly nearer a solution than at 

 first." 



The American Lancet says : " Criticism is impossible, as the facts 

 are still so few." 



Jorirnal Am. Med. Ass. says : " In the onset of this intense excite- 

 ment it is needful that our medical men shall pursue a conservative 

 course. It is not needful that they shall be skeptical, nor that they shall 

 jDrejudge the facts." 



In our own mind fear is uppermost that the outcome will consist 

 largely of diappointment. We suggest that if the curative " lymph " 

 consists wholly or in part of a by-product of the tubercular bacillus, 

 each patient suffering from tuberculosis produces within himself a more 

 than sufficient amount of this substance. 



No Universal Germicide. — Until quite recently it appears to have 

 been the aim of investigators in medical bacteriology to discover some 

 drug which should destroy or inhibit the growth of every species of 

 pathogenic micro-organisms. The search has been a failure. If such 

 a drug exists, it is probably so poisonous to human beings that it can be 

 used only with the greatest caution, bichloride of mercury, for example. 

 A more promising search is that for substances fatal to given species of 

 microbes. These may have no effect upon other species, and will not 

 necessarily be poisonous to man. To draw a coarse illustration, the 

 Dalmatian insect powder is effective against the house fly, but does not 

 kill the Colorado beetle, for which Paris green is a sure poison. So it 

 is probable that the physician's armamentarium will soon consist, not 

 of one or two powerful and poisonous germicides, but a dozen or more, 

 each fatal to a certain class or species of disease germs, and some of 

 them at least, we hope, entirely non-poisonous. 



Submembraneous Local Treatment of Pharyngeal Diphthe- 

 ria. — In the N. T. Medical your7ial of Dec. 6, 1890, appears a 

 paper, with the above title, from the pen of A. Seibert, M. D. The 

 paper appears to us of such transendent importance that we briefly sum- 

 marize it. Local antiseptic treatment in diphtheria, gargles, sprays, 

 etc., have proven of little avail, because the causative bacilli develop, 

 not on the surface of the mucous membrane, but in its deeper layers, 

 from within outwards. Germicides applied to the surface do not reach 

 them at all. Dr. Seibert, therefore, proposes to inject the germicide 

 beneath the affected mucous membrane by means of an instrument, de- 

 scribed and figui-ed, specially devised for the purpose. 



After experimenting with many drugs, he selected a 0.2 per cent, 

 solution of chlorine water as the most suitable germicide. He repoi'ts 

 seven cases treated by submucous injections of chlorine water, with 

 most satisfactory results. It is essential that the treatment be applied 



