SCIENTIFIC ERROR

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 96, 20 October 1931, Page 7

SCIENTIFIC ERROR

CALMETTE TREATMENT

DOCTOR TAKES ALL BLAME

LUBECK COUBT CASE

United I'rcss Association—by" Electric Telegraph—Copyrieht. (Received 20th October, 11 a.m.) LUBECK, 19th October. Professor Ddycke, ..of tho Lubeck General Hospital, caused a sensation in Court when he stated that when first he introduced the Calmetto treatment he was convinced that it was not only harmless, but beneficial. He now frankly admitted, as tho result of eighteen months' experiments on infants, that ho had made a scientific error for which he assumed full responsibility. <'I£ the Court decides that the error is punishable, I bog them to find mo and not the others guilty."

The Court case is a sequel to tho deaths of 75 infants in May, 1930, following treatment by tho "Calmette'' anti-tubercular process last year. Professor Deycke.head of the Lubeck General Hospital, Dr. Klotz, head of the Children's Hospital, Dr. Altstaedt, head of the Health Department, and Nursing Sister Anna Sehultzo were charged with negligence, causing manslaughter and bodily injury to 253 infants, of whom 75 died and moro than 100 were seriously ill, many yet being in danger. The prosecution alleges that insufficient care was taken in the preparation of the vaccine, tho Oalmette cultures being kept in the same incubator with virulent human tubercular cultures. , '

Also it is contended that tho defendants failed to discover by oxperimonts on animals whether the cultures were innocuous beforo administration.