AUTOTHERAPY. 
539 
Auto-therapy is like a two-edged sword. It is doubly useful 
if handled by intelligence, but great harm may be done in the 
hands of the ignorant and careless. Auto-therapy is not a cure at 
all, neither is any other therapy. 
No one would think of putting the crude chancroidal virus on 
a raw surface or give it by the mouth. A skilled appreciation of 
the nature of the infection should always be the guide in admin¬ 
istering autogenous products. 
In auto-inoculating, if too great an aggravation should be ob¬ 
tained with the autogenous toxic substance, do not tend to destroy 
the therapeutic value of the substance by heat, but dilute it or tri¬ 
turate it. Its therapeutic power is raised by dilution; the toxic 
effect is lessened Distilled water often may suffice; the patient’s 
own serum is better, as a menstruum, if too much is not required. 
There is a way the writer is developing of re-auto-inoculating 
the patient with the toxic product of micro-organisms and the 
toxic products of tissue changes that is free from danger of bac¬ 
terial infection for many alimentary and pulmonary and many ex¬ 
tra-alimentary and extra-pulmonary diseases. This method consists 
in filtering the discharge of the disease and injecting the filtrate 
hypodermically. Alcohol precipitates some bacterial toxins, just 
how many is not known. It is safe not to use it. If a menstruum 
is needed to dilute it, use the patient’s own blood; possibly water 
will be sufficient in the majority of infections. If it is necessary 
to grow a culture of the offending micro-organism use the pa¬ 
tient’s own blood, oxalated or not as occasion may require. This 
is the ideal culture medium. The power of the serum is usually 
low. It is always at hand and the only wonder is that it was 
never thought of as the ideal culture medium for autogenous 
vaccines. 
The next step in the process is filtering the mixture. This is 
done through a small porcelain filter, similar to the ones used in 
all biological laboratories, called a Berkfield filter. Filtration 
with this filter is the only means of sterilizing the serum of a horse 
that is used as a tetanus and other antitoxin preparations. Bac¬ 
teria and spores of many diseases cannot go through this filter, 
