Page:The Indian Medical Gazette1904.pdf/49

 2, 5» 8, 11 with Roux-Yersin's serum ; and 3, 6, 9, 12 with ordinary non-seram treatment. Of 31 cases allotted to Lastig's treatment all died • of 31 cases made over to the Boux-Yersin treatment 29 died ; of 31 cases under ordinary treatment 29 also died. It is futile to argue that the Lnstig cases "were placed at a com- paratively greater disadvantao^e/' that some cases were admitted dead, moribund or septi* csemic, yet the cardinal fact remains that as many or more recovered without serum treatment as with it Such a result must carry weight with responsible officials with a limited exchequer and preased for funds. However regrettable and disappointing the discontinuance of the preparation of plague cuitttive serum in the Municipal Laboratory at Parel may have appeared, yet it is difficult to see what other coui-se could have been adopted after the Govern- ment subsidy had been withdrawn and the com- pulsory removal of plaorue patients to special hospitals had been abolished.

Profftflsor Sir Thomas R. Frase^ and the Indian Plague Commission are quoted in favour of Lustig's serum ; but it should also be remembered that they made some adverse observations. They stated they were quite unable to detect any- thing in the nature of agglutination or morpho- logical alteration in the plague bacteria brought in contact with diluted or undiluted serum either as prepared according to Yersin or Lustig. Moreover, by cultivation methods they were un- able to detect the presence of any anti-bacterial substances in the serum. Their experiments on guinea-pigs with Lnstig's serum and plague cultures were markedly unfavourable, indeed the control animals survived longer than those inocu- lated with Lustig's serum. Their remarks on the use of this serum on man specially with refer- ence to the observations on which Dr. Choksy bases his conclusions are neither favourable nor flattering except in the third series, which they considered to afford evidence of a diminished mortality on the part of the patients who were treated with serum.

There can be few who doubt that our main or only hope of arriving at a plague specific, or pro- phylactic, lies in the lines of serotherapy. Let the advocates of Lustig's serum produce a more potent, more certain, and less bulky preparation, and let them show a substantial reduction in plague mortality with figures and tables that require no explanations, no selections, and no apologies; then it will win its way to public

favour and scientific recognition without Govern- ment subsidy or support, although the latter wjll assuredly be forthcoming when the success of the serum is clearly demonstrated. The Gov- ernment of India and the provincial govern- ments have proved themselves both generous in expenditure on plague measures, and ready to adopt any expedients which give a reasonable prospect of success to rid this afflicted land of such a dire scourge.

Although this theory of plague quite deserves its fate, yet it is possessed of some interest as illustrating the curious maze of devious paths along which medical observers permitted them- selves to wander who followed the inductive method too closely, and who made — all uncon- sciously be it allowed— the facts to fit into their theories. It may also serve as a landmark and warning to ourselves in our present rather nebulous and transition stage, at which our successors fifty years hence will smile much in the same way as we may feel inclined to do in a kindly manner at the views which obtained half a ceittu ry ago.

Just fifty-five years ago Dr. Allan Webb, of the Bengal Medical Service, published the second edition of his Pathologta Indtca, which was published by Thacker & Co. of Calcutta. Since it was obtainable in London from Allen & Co., and from Baillifere & Co. in Paris, it was pre- sumably a book of some importance, and its author was not unknown as Professor of Descrip- tive and Surgical Anatomy in the Calcutta Medical College, having previously been Profes- sor of Military Surgery. As Curator of the College Museum it was his ambition to make it the great central collection for India of human, pathological, surgical and comparative anatoiny; the Medical Board aided the scheme by inviting civil and military surgeons to forward specimens to Calcutta "through the regular channels," in addition to which the Medical and Physical Society presented their collection of over six hundred preparations. His book, the Pathologia Indica, contains full and faithful descriptions of specimens and cases, along with much curious information regarding the theory and practice of medicine in the East.

The influence of the air on the blood and its corpuscles, along with endosmotic action, formed j the basis of his pathology, and sulphuretted ^ LV^