296 BACTERIOLOGY. 
moderate doses described, be considered absolutely 
infallible. 
‘¢ No evidence in connection with the tuberculin test 
as applied to man and animals has been forthcoming 
thus far from those who have made use of it, which 
would tend to sustain the general impression that this 
method is necessarily dangerous and tends invariably 
to aggravate the disease, and my own experience has 
developed nothing which would seem to confirm this 
impression. It is evident that the size of the doses 
given has much to do with the limitations of this method 
for usefulness and the correctness of the conclusions 
reached by its application. The tuberculin used is also 
a matter of some importance in determining the dosage, 
as different samples vary considerably in their efficiency. 
The minute amounts adopted by Grasset and Vedel— 
i. e., from 0.0002 to 0.0005—while they have the advan- 
tage of absolute safety, may lead into error, as they 
are insufficient, on the evidence of these observers them- 
selves, to cause reaction in cases proven to be tuberculous 
by the presence of the bacillus in the expectoration. If, 
on the other hand, the test be pushed to the injection of 
such large amounts as 10 mg. or more, as advocated by 
Maragliano, such doses are by no means free from the 
objection of occasionally causing unpleasant and some- 
times dangerous symptoms; and even if the amount 
given be not carried to the dose of 10 mg., which is 
known to produce fever in healthy subjects, it is likely 
that on account of individual susceptibility or the pres- 
ence of some other morbid process in the body, reaction 
will be found to occur with the larger doses when no 
tuberculous process exists. The adoption of an initial 
dose so small as to guard against the absolute possibility 
