2io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



magna. Before any conclusions can be formulated, the after-effects of 

 the remedy must be studied, he says, for some months running, possibly 

 a year or more. Will " 606 " permanently abort or check an attack 

 of syphilis, or will it, like a drastic silver nitrate treatment in gonor- 

 rhoea, cause some of the pathogenic organisms to burrow into the deep 

 tissues, only to crop out as an embarrassing recrudescence later on? 

 Will it have any effect upon the posterity of syphilitics or upon those 

 strange parasyphilitic affections, locomotor ataxia and general paraly- 

 sis ? Will it produce a generation of paretics and ataxics as some think 

 mercury does? These and similar questions that suggest themselves 

 can only be resolved by a study of the treated cases over long periods 

 of time. The fact that suckling infants are cured after their mothers 

 have received the injection would argue, Ehrlich thinks, that something 

 like antibodies are formed in the maternal milk, indicating that " 606 " 

 acts like a true antitoxin. This would seem to be borne out by the 

 disappearance of the Wassermann serodiagnostic reaction shortly after 

 the injection is given. I am informed by Captain Charles F. Craig, 

 of the Army Medical Department, that in 33 United States soldiers 

 recently treated with "606" (medium doses of 0.6 gram), the syph- 

 ilitic lesions and the Wassermann reaction disappeared in 28 cases dur- 

 ing periods of time ranging from five days to about two months, the 

 men being returned to duty as cured. 2 Statistical results like these 

 are now mounting up by the hundreds in the medical journals of the 

 world, and if the effects of the drug are permanent it is probable that 

 syphilis will become, in due course, a rare disease in civilized commun- 

 ities. There are some who have still enough of " odium tfieologicum " 

 in their composition to think this disease a sort of divine punishment 

 for the social evil, and that its suppression would imply an inevitable 

 increase in immorality. But morality and immorality are too much 

 the resultant of a conflict between innate disposition and social or 

 ethical forces to be appreciably influenced by discoveries in therapeutics. 

 These bigoted souls may take comfort in the fact that " 606 " is a 

 simple chemical remedy, acting like quinine in malarial fever. It 

 protects the innocent — the wives and children of the infected man — 

 but, if it spares the sinner for the present, it holds out no alluring 

 prospects for vicious indulgence in the future. " 606 " does not confer 

 immunity from subsequent infection. 



The scientific career of the remarkable man to whom medicine owes 

 so much and who himself owes so little to university training is a 

 striking example of the self-reliance and autodidactic tendencies that 



2 In the circular of instructions for the administration of " 606 " issued by 

 the Surgeon General of the TJ. S. Army (December 13, 1910), it is directed that 

 for present routine work among soldiers the medium dose of 0.4-0.6 gm. should 

 be given. This may probably be increased to 1 gm. later on, when the after- 

 effects of the remedy are ascertained. 



