Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
March,  1918.  5 
Current  Literature. 
209 
THE  DEBT  OF  MEDICINE  TO  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  DYES.1 
The  Lancet  of  July  ij,  191  7,  calls  attention  to  a  series  of  articles 
on  "  Science  and  Industry,"  published  in  a  supplement  to  a  recent 
issue  of  the  Manchester  Guardian.  There  is  one  by  Dr.  C.  W. 
Saleeby  on  "  DyestufTs  and  Medicine,"  in  which  the  remarkable  in- 
fluence on  the  progress  of  medical  science,  encouraged  by  the  dis- 
covery of  coal-tar  dyes,  is  discussed.  The  subject  is  not  in  the  least 
new  to  medical  science  and  scientific  audiences,  but  is  none  the  less 
interesting.  As  we  have  often  pointed  out,  the  selective  action  of 
dyes  on  microorganisms  was  a  step  of  the  utmost  diagnostic  value 
by  adding  to  the  efficiency  of  microscopic  examinations,  and  now  we 
are  turning  this  selective  action  to  account  in  the  treatment  of 
numerous  infections.  The  dyes,  in  short,  have  laid  the  foundations 
of  a  system  of  chemicotherapeutics  which  promises  to  be  of  dis- 
tinct importance  in  combating  some  of  the  worst  of  human  ills.  The 
discovery  of  a  dye  substance — e.  g.,  such  as  acriflavine — which  ap- 
pears to  discriminate  between  friend  and  foe,  only  attacking  the 
latter,  suggests  the  possibility  of  finding  further  selective  substances 
which  are  not  inimical  to  the  human  organism,  but  destructive  to  the 
particular  disease  organisms  which  are  known  to  have  invaded  the 
host.  The  possibility  of  successful  treatment  on  these  lines  is  real. 
Little  could  William  Murdoch  have  conceived  in  1792  when  he  dis- 
tilled coal  for  the  first  time  for  producing  gas  for  lighting  his  house 
— thus  laying  the  foundations  of  the  coal-gas  industry — what  great 
potentialities  lay  hidden  in  the  distillation  whose  by-products  now 
yield  such  an  astonishing  stock  of  valuable  synthetics,  antiseptics, 
dyes,  and  explosives. 
CURRENT  LITERATURE. 
SCIENTIFIC  AND  TECHNICAL  ABSTRACTS. 
.  The  Utilization  of  the  Adsorptive  Power  of  Fuller's 
Earth  for  Chemical  Separations. — In  a  contribution  from  the 
hygienic  laboratory,  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service,  Atherton  Seidell 
makes  a  further  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  the  value  of 
fuller's  earth  for  chemical  separations  (other  than  decolorizations) . 
1  From  The  Therapeutic  Gazette. 
