Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/251

Rh I do not intend to discuss the value to the clinician of this interesting method and Wright's observations based upon it. The subject appears to me to be one of great intricacy and therefore to be approached in a spirit of proper criticism despite its evident allurements. My purpose in mentioning it at all is to bring again to your attention a method of exciting the tuberculous body to put forth an effort at self immunization which is sometimes efficient to a marked degree. It is not the injected tuberculin that accomplishes directly the changes in the condition of the patient, for there already exists, doubtless, an excess of similar poisons in the tuberculous foci in the body. The healthy body, indeed, does not react in this manner and is not to be protected, enduringly, from tuberculous infection by a previous treatment with tuberculin. As Koch's phenomenon shows the tuberculous organism to have developed defenses against subsequent tuberculous infection which the normal body does not possess in equal degree, the employment of tuberculin indicates that the diseased body can be aroused artificially to put forth a stronger effort than its unaided natural forces enable it to make, in order that the disease may be overcome. Herein resides a great principle, an immense power for good, and, consequently, a great hope for future progress in the rational and specific treatment of tuberculosis in man. Efficient efforts at suppression of the causes of tuberculosis, deeper knowledge of the principles of bacterial immunity, are the two forces which in time may stay the ravages of the 'White Death.'