FIGHTING T.B.

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11651, 16 October 1923, Page 3

FIGHTING T.B.

NEW VACCINE RECEIVED DISTRIBUTED TO DOMINION HOSPITALS. TESTS TO BE MADE. It is understood that the New Zealand Department of Health has received a small supply of the new vaccine prepared by Professor Dreyer, of Oxford University, for the treatment of tuberculosis. The supply came through the Medical Research Council, and is being distributed to the various sanatoria in the Dominion. Arrangements have been completed for further supplies to follow. No special claims are made for the vaccine, but it is hoped that the tests will lead to something more satisfactory. RESULTS OF RESEARCH. Considerable research work has been proceeding for some time past relative to the deprivation of the acid-fast, waxy envelope of the tubercle bacillus. Mere extraction of tho bacilli with fat solvents has not, however, been followed by complete loss of the acid-fastne6S, but the latter property has been destroyed by combining witn such extractives certain chemical substances, as for example, a mineral acid. A STEP FURTHER. Professor Dreyer has carried his work a step further, and has shown that if the bacilli are first treated with formalin and then with acetone they become very slender and non-acid-fast, ard injections of these into infected animals were found to be capable of producing antibodies that led to an arrest of tne progress of the disease. SUCCESSFUL RESULTS. Clinical trials in the London and Brompton hospitals with the new vaccine prepared by Professor Dreyer are stated to have been successful, not only in pulmonary but in other forms of tuberculosis, no untoward local or general effects having occurred. "The Medical Officer” says: "We look forward with interest to the more extended application of this new immunological principle which appears to be full of promise from a therapeutic standpoint.”