Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/71

Rh identical, as Oriental sore immunised against itself it ought also to immunise against kala-azar. An opportunity to test that had recently presented itself at the School of Tropical Medicine. They had, in hospital, a case of Oriental sore, and at the same time a case of kala-azar, and he had been able to obtain the consent of the patient who was suffering from kala-azar to be inoculated with Oriental sore. Two students of the school volunteering to act as controls of the virulence of the inoculated matter were inoculated at the same time, but the result was failure; none of the inoculations took. Still, he would much like to get another opportunity to repeat that inter- esting experiment with an Oriental sore in an earlier stage. It was essential that one should have a thoroughly reliable virus, and at the same time a suitable case of kala-azar. The former he was endeavouring to start and keep going, by means of monkeys, etc.; the latter would, no doubt, in time present itself. If any who were present that evening could assist him with an opportunity, or avail themselves of an opportunity to test this hypothesis, the result, he believed, might encourage them to continue in a new line the attempts now being made to find a cure for kala-azar.

Again, was Oriental sore constitutional; was it a systemic disease; or was it one that, if the local lesion were cut out or destroyed, would thereby be cured? He considered that Oriental sore was a general infection, and that was probable, because, for one thing, a patient, on obtaining immunity, obtained general immunity. If the active sore was eradicated in one place, it would appear in another, and it could only be effectively cured when the parasite had run its course and reached the involution stage.