THE SERUM TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 25, 9 February 1912, Page 8

THE SERUM TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

Arooag the communications received Iroui readers, says Ur. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E,, in the “Weekly Telegraph,” and which I have been preserving pending a fitting time to reply thereto, one interesting letter bears the suggestion that I should devote an article to the “serum treatment of disease.” The writer justly remarks that this treatment hao now attained a very great prominence in the hands of medical men, and as it is most desirable that the public should at all times sympathise with the efforts of science to eradi- * cate disease and to effect a cure of illness, an article on the subject, it is urged, might give some instruction regarding this mode of combating the ills to which flesh is heir. The , word ‘‘serum,” it may first be reremarked, is applied in science to the fluid part, of the blood. Indeed, we might regard the serum of blood as the actual fluid, seeing that there float in it the white and red corpuscities of the blood, each kind of solid particle having its own and proper work to do in the maintenance of the body. Regarding serum as the real blotid we find it to represent an accumulation of fluid charged with nourishing properties which it has derived from the food. The colour of the blood, it will be understood, depends on the fact that, the red corpuscles floating in the serum exist by millions, and therefore to the unassisted fcye present the blood fluid as a uniformly red tint. There is little doubt that in addition to containing the nourishment necessary to maintain the cells and tissues of our bodies the serum also exercises a certain natural power of killing or destroying disease germs with which it may he brought in contact. Probably the recognition of this fact was that which set scientific men on the track of discovering whether or not the germ killing powers of the blood fluid could be utilised in the service of the body to which the fluid belonged and by which the serum was produced. There seems to be little doubt that where we find certain animals, for example land also certain human beings), incapable of being affected or inoculated with a particular disease, the cause of their freedom therefrom is to be regarded as due to the serum's power of disposing of any of the particular germs which may gain admittance to the body. In such a case the body may be egardhd as naturally fortified against the attack of the germs in question. The further thought naturally came to the front in the course of the researches to which I have alluded, that if Nature thus provided means of preventing or of curing diseases through the lction of the blood fluid, whether it rligfit’*n6t „be possible to produce artificially the substances, such as, used by the physician, might effect a similar result. Out of some such conception as this grew the serum treatment of disease. We thus remark at the outset that the physician in using this treatment is practically following strictly od the lines which . Nature herself has marked out

in what may be called her natural *ure of illness. Perhaps the best known example of j 4ie successful application of the | erum treatment of disease to the i elief of human illness is that repre unted -by the serum or anti-toxin treatment of diptberia. It is necesary here to explain that when germs enter the body and set up ■ disease they do so because they are I capable in the blood of producing a poisonous substance known as "toxins.” So long as these substances | are manufactured they tend to affect j the body and, as a matter of fact, ! to give rise to the particular symptoms of the disease caused by the germs. Sooner or later, however, it is found that when the growth of the germs has attained its maximum, so to speak, certain other bodies are produced in the blood, these latter being known as "anti-toxins.” Probably the serum of,the blood fluid having overcome the inroads of the germs develops the anti-toxins, which muy therefore be regarded as the antidote to the b&ne which has afflicted us in the shape of disease. Be this as it may, it is certain that when we recover, say, from a fever it is because the anti-toxins which! .have been produced in the J>lood, probably in part at least as the result of-germ growth, rout the germs and prevent their further development, and in this way, therefore, we aee how nature, by producing these inti-toxin substances, effects the cure of the disease. Turning now to the experimental tide of the question, for we must remember that experiment is simply the means of o ur getting to know the j secrets of Nature, the anti toxin of | iiptberia, now so largely used in i hospitals, is obtained from the horse. This animal is not one liable to be affected by diptheria, or at j least very slightly so* Hence it may ! be concluded that its blood supply possesses (Qualities of a highly pro- j tective nature. Pure cultures of dip-1 t-beria germs are made in laboratories from the bacilli obtained directly ! from human cases of the disease. These cul turps are used to inoculate the horse, the operation here being a mere matter of a pin prick with a very small and specially constructed syringe. For a period of some weeks ! there inoculation experiments are j carried out, and at the end of the; period it is found that as a result j of the inoculation with diptheria j germs the horse's blood has developed ! a very special and strong anti toxin, , strong that is in the sense that it acta as ft very distinct poison to the

diptheria germs. Nowadays, therefore, when a doctor is called to a case of diptheria he usefc the autitoxins obtained from the blood of I the horse, and in this way re-action is produced in the patient and recovery rendered possible. The former huge death rate from diptheria has been very largely reduced since the r introduction o 1 this treatment. I j may add that serums .for the similar j treatment of typhoid fever, lockjaw,, r and cholera are already in use, and t there is no list in future years will be materially extended. Much research and laborious investi- * gation, however, naturally reiiuirB ed in order to establish /definitely the curative powers of any special serum.