76 
Current  Literature. 
( Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    February,  1915. 
CURRENT  LITERATURE. 
The  Friedmann  Treatment  for  Tuberculosis. 
The  furor  that  attended  the  introduction  of  Friedmann's  agent 
for  the  cure  of  tuberculosis  has  passed  away.  The  nostrum,  which 
bids  fair  to  be  one  of  the  best  sellers,  is  not  on  the  American  market. 
The  history  of  these  occurrences  is  interesting  and  offers  sugges- 
tions well  worth  the  thoughtful  consideration  of  the  pharmaceutical 
profession. 
In  Bulletin  No.  99  of  the  Hygienic  Laboratory  of  the  United 
States  Public  Health  Service,  under  date  of  October,  1914,  Anderson 
and  Stimson  report  the  results  of  their  investigations  of  the  Fried- 
mann  treatment  of  tuberculosis,  and  draw  the  following  conclusions : 
"  The  claims  made  by  Dr.  Friedmann  for  his  method  of  treating 
tubercular  infections  are,  in  brief,  that,  by  means  of  injections  of  a 
living  acid-fast  organism,  harmless  of  itself,  he  is  able  to  cure  cases 
of  tuberculosis,  pulmonary  or  otherwise,  which  have  not  already 
advanced  to  that  hopeless  stage  where  death  is  imminent.  From  the 
manner  of  presenting  these  claims  and  from  the  fact  that  successes 
only  and  not  failures  are  reported,  the  reader  of  these  claims  is  bound 
to  assume  that  such  results  are  the  rule ;  in  other  words,  that  a  sov- 
ereign remedy  for  tuberculosis  has  at  length  been  discovered,  and 
incidentally  that  a  method  has  been  devised  for  the  administration 
of  living  acid-fast  organisms  which  avoids  abscess  formation,  a  com- 
plication which  has  hitherto  limited  their  employment. 
"  The  results  of  the  investigation  here  reported  do  not  confirm  the 
claims  made  by  Dr.  Friedmann.  We  find,  in  brief,  that  the  prepara- 
tion used  by  him  is  not  strictly  devoid  of  dangerous  properties  of 
itself,  still  less  so  when  injected  into  tuberculous  subjects ;  that  the 
favorable  influencing  of  tuberculous  processes  by  his  methods  is  cer- 
tainly not  the  rule,  and  that  if  we  are  to  ascribe  to  the  Friedmann 
treatment  the  improvement  noted  in  a  few  cases,  we  are  equally  bound 
to  impute  to  it  the  serious  retrogression  observed  in  other  cases ;  and, 
finally,  that  the  phenomenon  of  abscess  formation  has  not  been 
avoided  by  Dr.  Friedmann's  methods. 
"  We  find  that  the  organism  used  by  Dr.  Friedmann  differs  in 
important  cultural  characteristics  from  any  heretofore  recognized 
tubercle  bacillus. 
"  The  subcutaneous  and  intramuscular  inoculation  of  animals 
