53P> 
CHARLES H. DUNCAN. 
is one of the substances nature employs in auto-inoculation, or 
when a natural cure is made. This is more curative than vac¬ 
cines whose therapeutic value have been lessened by heat or by 
being grown in culture media outside of the body tissues. The 
different phases of the diseases can be met with the corresponding 
vaccine more accurately by this method than by the method now 
in vogue. 
The two known methods of inoculation through the skin are 
by scarification and by hypodermic injection. 
Hypodermic injection of dead bacteria by the method now in 
vogue needs no explanation, as we are all more or less familiar 
with the proceeding. 
*At first glance, it would appear dangerous to inject live bac¬ 
teria hypodermically, but Dr. Laidlaw appears to have done this 
successfully in many cases of pneumonia with no ill effect. He 
withdraws the fluid from the lungs of pneumonia patients and in¬ 
jects it under the skin without removing the point of the needle. 
He injected two cases for the writer. If I am correctly informed, 
none of his cases had abscess formations or suffered anv ill effect. 
Both of the writer’s cases had crises—one in six hours and the 
other in twelve, after the injection on the fourth and fifth day of 
the disease, respectively. I believe this is the average results he 
obtained. One practically hopeless case of a man of seventy, in¬ 
jected by the writer, died. The writer believes it would be better 
to filter the sputum before injecting it in the manner de¬ 
scribed in a later paragraph. But few of his cases de¬ 
veloped micro-organisms when a culture was made from the 
substance withdrawn from the consolidated lung, and they re¬ 
sponded to the treatment. This points to the conclusion that there 
are toxic substances besides those emanating from the bacteria, 
that are necessary for a cure. Experiments along this line in 
other diseases show that there are many toxic substances the 
products of tissue change, present in the focus of infections. In 
* The writer does not recommend injecting live bacteria hypodermically now, but there 
is no telling what future experiments may develop in this direction. We believe healthy 
tissues at times can take care of a few pathological micro-organisms, and as the toxine 
of the live bacteria is most potent and curative, it is possible a very few in some diseases 
may eventually be proved to be beneficial. 
