612 
EDITORIAL. 
We have watched as carefully as we could all that has 
been published on the subject, and so far our researches have 
failed to discover anything relating to a part of the experimen¬ 
tal process which in our opinion ought to have been followed 
before the treatment had been allowed to enter into the 
domain of human therapeuty. We are here referring to ex¬ 
periments upon our domestic animals, and especially upon 
those which, there is a tendency to believe, are among the 
most common means of the transmission of the disease. It is 
true that it was by experiments upon animals that the lymph 
was discovered, but if only rabbits and guinea-pigs were em¬ 
ployed, it was, so to speak, only an experimental tuberculosis 5 
and if apparently good results were obtained with them, would 
it not have been the dictate of wisdom to test the virtues of 
the lymph upon the cow, for example, as an animal in which 
tuberculosis is especially common, and upon which, by post¬ 
mortem inspection, after a supposed recovery, the effects of 
the treatment could have been learned with scarcely a possi¬ 
bility of doubt. We are not informed whether or not such 
experiments have been made, but we feel confident that they 
would have produced results quite as satisfactory and valua¬ 
ble as those which have accrued where human beings have 
been the subjects, and which we fear may be justifiably con¬ 
sidered to have cost the lives of those whose death has al¬ 
ready been recorded, or who, if not subjected to martyrdom 
as victims to an incompletely understood treatment, might at 
least have been saved from a sudden and fatal collapse. The 
adoption of a comparative therapeuty with Koch’s cure would 
certainly have gained much in professional estimation by this 
course. The prophylactic application of anti-rabid inoculation 
of Pasteur did notenter human practice until the great French 
chemist had fully proved its effects on the animals most sub¬ 
ject to rabies. Would it not have been wise for Dr. Koch to 
have followed the same method ? 
A New Magazine.— The Bacteriological World is an¬ 
nounced to make its appearance with the beginning of the 
coming year. Thus January, 1891, will introduce the first 
member to its friends. The circular which we have received 
