DREYER'S VACCINE

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18241, 27 November 1924, Page 5

DREYER'S VACCINE

REPORT OF SANATORIUM SUPERINTENDENT. Ib Br. I. C. Macintyrc, Acting-Medical Superintendent at the Cashmere Sanatorium, submitted the following report on Dreyer'g vaccine to yesterday 9 meeting of the North Canterbury Hospital Board:— About the middle'of last year it announced in the daily Tress that a new vaccine in the treatment of tuberculosis, -which it was claimed superior to the ordinary tuberculin then in use, had been evolved by Professor Georges Drover. Steps "were immediately taken by Pr. < r . Cr. -fr'" l !' more to olitaiji some of this vaccina for trial in our institutions, and.. now. a >year after commencement of treatment, I beg to make a short report on it.

Tuberculin has been "used quite extensively by Dr. Blackmore for man} years past, and as this vaccine is a. tuberculin made on a slightly different principle it was unfortunate that we. were without the benefit of bis long experience in drawing any conclusions as to the value or otherwise of this new remedy. In accordance with Dr. Blackmore 's instructions, Dreyer's vacemo has been given on practically the same lines as wo follow with f he ordinary tuberculin. No cases received this treatment that were suitable for the ordinary tuberculin. They were practically all in the second or third stago of the disease, and the majority were making little or no progress under our ordinary routine methods. All were inpatients subject to the usual Sanatorium discipline as regards rest, exerciso, regular hours, etc. As it is now three months sinco tlio last injection was given it is perhaps permissible to make some statement as to its possible value.

lii all 50 patients received the vaccine, extending over a period of aboiu three to six months, classified thus: Stage 1: Improved 2, not improved 2, died 0, total 4; stage 2: 4, 2, 2, 8; stage 3: 3, 22, 13, 38. Totals: 9, 20', lu, 50.

. In ojily nine cases can any improvement be said to havo occurred, and in two of these I rather suspect it is only of a temporary nature. Whether this improvement will be maintained remains to be seen, but such a proportion in a series of similar cases taken at random might reasonably be expected from the usual Sanatorium methods of treatment. The vaccine was of 110 value in cases where tho disease was actively progressive. In the great majority of slowly progressive or stationary chronic cases there appears to be no appreciable difference, as shown by the large number under the heading of "Not Improved." Strictly speaking, no comparison can be made from this series with the usual tuberculin treatment, for it is now seldom, if ever, used in the type of case in which we tried Dreyer's vaccine. It was confidently hoped that with the removal of tho fatty envelope surrounding the body of the germ by Dreyer's process we would have a substance ■ at our disposal which, when injected, would actively stimulate the human body to resist the germs within itself and so hasten a cure. The same principle underlies our use of the ordinary tuberculin, except that in its preparation the fatty envelope is not removed. As there appears to be no reason for believing that Dreyer's method of preparing his vaccine shows any material benefit from a therapeutic point of view wo have in the meantime, at any rate, abandoned its use in these institutions.