Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/250

246 It is an interesting subject of speculation as to what the result will be when cattle in general, and possibly, man later, shall have been immunized to tuberculosis. Will the race of tubercle bacilli disappear in large measure from the world? This would indeed be a beneficent result. But Dr. Smith has pointed out in a recently delivered address that doubtless host and parasite eventually come to hold a kind of equilibrium to each other, and hence an increased degree of resistance in the former might tend to bring about that selection among the parasites through which races of greatly augmented power for invasion would be produced. If this were true, and he even suggests that the natural process of weeding out the weaker among the human race tends to this result, the parasite would try to keep up with the host as his resistance increased until a point was reached beyond which further enhancement of power was impossible. Would the higher animal or the lower vegetable organism finally claim the victory? We need perhaps at this moment not to relax our efforts to achieve a practical immunity for man as well as for animals because of this future danger. I am not aware that the smallpox germ has increased measurably in virulence since vaccination became general, but I would also add that a century is a small period of time in the life history of any living organism.

Before closing this address I should like to refer briefly to the new interest which has been excited in the use of tuberculin in the treatment of human tuberculosis by reason of the application to the study of tuberculosis of a method introduced by E. A. Wright, of London, whereby it is held that the exact effect of the tuberculin injection can be measured and controlled. The method consists in the determination of the capacity of the blood leucocytes to take up tubercle bacilli when the blood and the bacilli are brought together outside the body in a test tube. Wright and his pupils have worked out the normal power of the blood to cause the englobing of the bacilli; and they have noted a diminution of this capacity in the blood of many persons suffering from tuberculosis. They speak of this englobing capacity of the blood as 'opsonic index,' from the word meaning to prepare—to cater for; since the bacilli must first be prepared by substances in the blood serum before they can be ingested by leucocytes. The injection of tuberculin, when cautiously done, tends to bring about a rise in the tuberculous, of the 'opsonic index' which Wright believes is a measure of the good done, as an increase in immunizing substances in the blood is the cause of the rise. He also discovered that time is required for the occurrence of the rise and that the immediate result of the injection is a fall of the index—so-called negative phase. This latter must be permitted to pass away and be succeeded by the positive phase before another injection is given. Gradually the 'opsonic index' is driven up in the cases that are favorable to the treatment.