SERUMS-NEW STYLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 76, 29 March 1924, Page 17

SERUMS-NEW STYLE.

RECENT INTERESTING

DISCOVERIES.

ifEv PEEITUS.)

The use of sera in medical practice is steadily growing. Tabloid drugs and hypodermic medications were, not long ago, something more than merely useful. They were a fashion— a habit; almost did they reach the point of becoming a craze—before they settled down to be no more than a part of medical treatment and not—as they threatened to be —the whole of it. Kow there is an endeavour to reduce all treatment to an expression in terms of sera. There are few patients who take kindly to the hypodermic syringe—that is just at first—and fewer still who do not regard with something stronger than dislike the large serum syringe, with its four-inch needle of quite alarming diameter; nor do they all look calmly upon the soft bubble of serum which distends the skin after injection. Of course women who have sustained surgical wounds eight inches long, and only the surgeon knows how many inches deep, and perhaps carried rubber drainage tubes as thick as one's thumb, can afterwards contemplate a serum syringe almost with affection, but so strong is the natural instinct to protect one's skin that even the ''strong, silent man" will flinch and shudder, and emit .a distinct sound at the sudden puncture of the cold steel.

Then, although the preparation of a scrum is most careful, it sometimes happens that untoward results follow it's injection. There are often temperatures, rigors, and other minor matters which we all make light of, but when tho site of the injection becomes discoloured, or there is an angry rash, or severe headache, or vomiting, or what the patient cannot avoid considering as an attack of illness, provoked by the serum, the story travels far, and to tell the patient that ha. is exceptionally ' sensitive—as some are—does not always acquit the serum of blame. I know one doctor who goes so far as to accuse serum treatment of many evil things— not excluding fatal results. In view of all this, the possibility of using sera by any other method than that now commonly adopted will, I think, be welcomed.

One of the most famous doctors alive to-day has recently said that, "Once a substance has passed the gullet (has been swallowed), we have no further control over it," and he might, with some truth, have added, "and not much knowledge of what becomes of it." The human stomach is a wonderful machine, and the internal processes, chemical and biological, not yet fully examined nor understood. ' The stomach will accept many thing 3 not good for it, or its owner, and will often reject hurriedly other things which its owner has previously decided are harmless or beneficial. It can be quite autocratic. It will split some drugs into component parts with the 'thoroughness of an analyst, pass others on to the bowel to deal with (the bowel, like a sub-editor, does not let much of anything pass unaltered), and make a most tremendous fuss over a drug which reaches it indirectly—through the circulation. The numerous secretions which are produced one way and another for use in the stomach combipe and act and re-act in a fashion more complicated than any jose dance or military tatoo, and a i detailed and minute anah'sis of stomach contents before and after the stomach's reception of common and uncommon things has yet to be done. I once offered a young lady a gift (she called it a bet) if she would catch and swallow a living fly. Well, she did it! When it was down, "That's dead!" she said. This is a more comfortable belief than-that frogs and lizards can exist in the stomach and eat all one's food, which was the ancient doctor's explanation of loss of weight in patients. There is a parasite which will, when alive, creep up into the stomach from the bowel, but it is not a frog nor a lizard. Anyhow, it is generally accepted that the "juices" of the stomach will destroy most of the lower forms of life, and, as Dr. Goodhart once said, digest everything but mineral acids and rusty nails.

A young man wishing to propose marriage, and "held up" by a bad outbreak of facial boils, gave mc an amusing account of his treatment by serum injection, as follows: —"The doctor said: 'Remove your belt and pull up your shirt,' and, as my face was the place where the boils were, I was wanting to know. Then he said: 'Turn your back, , and before I could say a word he stabbed mc with a needle, which seemed to mc to be about eight inches long, stuck on the end of a small garden syringe. I jumped a yard, and ran round a table, he after mc, the syringe hanging to my back, and going 'plunk! plunk!' as I ran. He did that twice a week for three weeks, and the boils disappeared—so did my wages for tho same time." Now for the good news. Drs. Besredka and Plotz &tate that they have proved the actual injection of a "serum into the body (by subcutaneous injection) to be unnecessary in many cases. They hold the theory that disease may attack special tissues and not necessarily the whole body through the general circulation.' They are able to show that the skin is susceptible to its own diseases, and can use its own defensive mechanism against them. It was for long believed that, alone amongst animals used for experiments, the guinea pig could not be protected against anthrax. At last the anthrax was applied directly to the skin of this creature, and an absolute protection was obtained! It follows that vaccination can be successfully directed to the special tissue or organ affected by disease. In typhoid, dysentery, and cholera—to the bowel; in boile, abscess, and ulcers—to the skin. In intestinal affections the vaccines can be given by the mouth in the form of tablets, and' in skin troubles the antidote is contained in dressings applied to the surface. Experiments in this method of treatment are reported to be more encouraging. In July of last year of 1616 soldiers, 546 were given doses by the mouth, as a protection, during an epidemic of dysentery. Of the 54G only 7.69 per cent contracted the disease; of those remaining 26.86 per cent fell hi, and of these (unprotected) five died. In another group of 2768 only 3.07 were attacked, and in a third group ef 1000 taking dead bacilli by the mouth no more than 0.3 became diseased, whilst amongst the unprotected 8.17 were iIL Ten times the amount of sickness amongst the unprotected than amongst the protected! This is a better result than is usually given when protection is by serum injection. It looks as if the time will come -when the customer at the chemist's shop will purchase his dose of "dead bacilli" as he does his "headache wafer" to-day, and the physician— already losing his hold on the hypodermic syringe to nurses and patients—will lose the credit of his little operation yiiih tie serum .syringe. ,