686 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 934 



to preserve in the discoveries just being 

 made in reference to fermentation, putre- 

 faction, and certain fungus and other dis- 

 eases of insects, the herald of the new sci- 

 ence that was to throw its protecting 

 mantle not about man alone, but about all 

 the higher animals and even about the 

 plants, in order that the useful and indis- 

 pensable should be protected from that 

 inevitable contest in nature between higher 

 and lower forms of life which constitutes 

 disease and leads to premature decay and 

 ruthless destruction. 



Bacteriology has, up to now, distributed 

 its favors unequally, but we must not be 

 daunted by this circumstance. It has 

 yielded, in some instances, knowledge of 

 diseases of small, and withheld, in others, 

 knowledge of diseases of great importance. 

 In respect to the common and highly con- 

 tagious diseases, measles and scarlet fever, 

 for example, progress has been slight. A 

 ray of hope has been cast upon this quest 

 by the announcement^ that measles can be 

 caused in the monkey by inoculation of in- 

 fected blood, but this awaits certain con- 

 firmation. Similar announcements have 

 been made recently regarding scarlet 

 fever.^ Since a flood of knowledge has 

 always suddenly flowed from the successful 

 transmission of an obscure disease to the 

 lower animals these reports have been 

 viewed with eager expectation. In the 

 case of scarlet fever I fear the expectation 

 is not yet to be realized. "We* spent last 

 winter in the study of this subject and 



^ Anderson and Goldberger, Bulletin of the U. S. 

 Public Health and Marine Eospital Service, 1911, 

 No. 62. 



^ Cantacuz&ne, Comptes rendus de la Soci6t4 de 

 liologie, 1911, LXX., 403. Bernhardt, Deutsche 

 medizinische Wocliensclirift, 1911, XXXVII., 791, 

 1062 ; Centralblatt fiir Bahteriologie, Farasiten- 

 Icunde und hifectionsTcrankheiten, Abteilung 1, 

 Referate, Supplement, 1911, I., 27. 



* Draper, George, unpublished studies. 



failed completely to infect or produce 

 scarlet fever in a wide variety of lower 

 monkeys. Possibly, but not certainly, the 

 higher anthropoid ape, which is still less 

 removed from the human species, is sub- 

 ject to inoculation.' The path of success 

 in relation to the refractory diseases is 

 marked by heavy obstacles, but it must be 

 travelled none the less. How often indeed 

 has crowning success come to the brave, 

 thoughtful and adventurous when all but 

 an expiring glimmer of hope had gone! 

 Witness in this connection the sudden con- 

 quest of syphilis, in which the initial vic- 

 tory was won when it was ascertained that 

 anthropoid apes can be infected experi- 

 mentally. There followed in rapid succes- 

 sion the discovery of the causative spiro- 

 eheta, the Wassermann clinical test and 

 the fabulous drug, salvarsan, the useful- 

 ness of which outruns the wide bounds of 

 syphilis itself. 



But even after such a victory the drama 

 had not come to an end. The spirochetal 

 cause could now be discovered regularly 

 where it had been as constantly missed be- 

 fore; doubts and disbeliefs in it were 

 quickly yielding before the rapidly ac- 

 cumulating evidence; but the microorgan- 

 ism itself resisted all attempts at artificial 

 cultivation. That the spirocheta is a para- 

 site nicely adjusted to living tissues was 

 clear from the difficulties surrounding the 

 exi^erimental inoculation of animals. Now 

 this act also has been played." The pallida 

 has yielded to artificial culture by Noguchi 

 and the method sufficing for it has sud- 

 denly exposed the whole class of disease- 

 producing spirochetal and some innocent 

 species as well, to cultivation and ex- 



' Landsteiner, Levaditi, and Prasek, Annates de 

 I'Institut Fasteur, 1911, XXV., 754. 

 ' Noguchi, Journal of Experimental Medicine, 



1911, XIV., 99; 1912, XV., 90; 1911, XIV., 557; 



1912, XVI., 199. 



