856 REPORT—1890. 
The researches of Becker, Deutschmann, Cohn, Laptschinsky, Priestley Smith, 
and others are briefly reviewed. Due caution is observed in considering the results 
of the analyses as rather contributory and suggestive than final and conclusive. 
Attention is drawn to the increasing weight generally observed with age, and ° 
to the small range of the ratio of solids and water in healthy lenses, being 
fairly constant at all ages. Comparison is made with similar analyses of ten 
cataractous lenses, and conclusions drawn as to the nature of the change; and 
certain bearings of the facts ascertained upon the nature of Presbyopia, Hyperme- 
tropia acquisita, and Glaucoma, and the operation for cataract are pointed out. 
8. Indications for the Cure of Infectious Diseases. 
By #. H. Hankin, B.A., from the Cambridge Pathological Laboratory. 
Koch’s discovery of the tubercle bacillus, and the great advance in our know- 
ledge of the bacteriology of disease to which this gave rise, not only attracted 
great attention in the scientific world, but produced the hope that the eure of infec- 
tious diseases might be obtained simply by the employment of antiseptics. The 
numerous attempts that were made to cure consumption and other diseases 
by means of antiseptics, whether given by inhalation or otherwise, have practically 
resulted in failure. All substances hitherto discovered that have the power of 
destroying microbes are also poisons to the higher animals. If they are adminis- 
tered to the animals in quantities necessary to destroy the pathogenic microbes, 
they will also kill the infected animal. 
The researches of Behring, Nissen, Bouchard, and others have shown that in an 
animal that is naturally refractory to a disease, or which has been made artificially 
immune against it, there is present some unknown substance which has, to adapt 
Bouchard’s term, a bactericidal action on the microbe in question. In other words, 
there is present a natural antiseptic of unknown nature in quantities sufficient to 
prevent the growth of the pathogenic microbe, but yet without affecting the 
general health of the animal. Is it not conceivable that by injecting this substance 
into animals we might obtain better results in the way of curing infectious diseases 
than have been obtained by means of such unnatural antiseptics (if the term may 
be used) as mercuric chloride or eucalyptol ? 
For some time past the author has attempted to discover the nature of these sub- 
stances, and it appears to him that his results are sufficiently interesting to be com- 
municated. In a conversation that he had with Dr. Lauder Brunton some years: 
ago, he suggested to him that possibly the organism protects, or tries to protect, 
itself from microbes by means of ferments. Just as an amceba seems to secrete a 
ferment to digest a microbe that it has swallowed, so, possibly, the cells of the 
higher animals secrete ferments to protect themselves against pathogenic microbes. 
If this be so, it becomes of great importance to know what is the ferment in ques- 
tion, and he thought it would be worth while to see whether any of the ferments 
that the animal body is known to produce could exert any influence on the course 
of the disease. His earlier results have appeared in a paper read before the Cam- 
bridge Philosophical Society. By injection of minute quantities of pepsin and 
trypsin into rabbits twenty-four hours after they had been inoculated with 
anthrax, he found that the course of the disease could be in many cases modified in 
aremarkable manner. In one case a rabbit that had been inoculated for him by 
Professor Koch with virulent anthrax completely recovered. ‘Twenty-four hours 
after its inoculation he injected 2 c.c. ot a ‘05 per cent. solution of trypsin into its 
lateral ear vein. The same day its temperature was found to be 37°°4, that is to 
say, nearly 23 degrees below the normal temperature of a rabbit. It remained at 
approximately this low figure for some days, showing a very gradual rise, and only 
on the sixth day after inoculation had it reached 38°.. From this point if rapidly 
rose, till on the eleventh day after inoculation it was 40°:1. On the twelfth day 
it stood at 40:05, when observation of its temperature was discontinued. Another 
interesting point about the case was the appearance of pus at the seat of inocula- 
tion, On the eighth day after the experiment began, a small hard tumour, about 
ay 
