FIGHTING CONSUMPTION

Otago Witness, Issue 2691, 11 October 1905, Page 27

FIGHTING CONSUMPTION

AN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS.

PROFESSOR BEHRING'S ALLEGED CURE. ~

PARIS, October 3

President Loubet opened the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held in Paris. There are 60 foreign delegates included amongst nearly 3000 scientists attending. Dr Theodore Williams, consulting physician to tke lio^pital for consumption at Brompton, stated that in England the. percentage of deaths from tuberculosis had decreased two-thirds in 50 years.

Dr Williams declared that in order to fight tuberculosis successfully it was necessary not only to fight ths Koch bacillus but also the modes of life which lay the human body open to the attacks of bacilli, such as contagion, poverty, unhealthy dwellings, badly ventilated factories, damp soil, and alcoholism.

October 6.

Professor Behring, the German Government's delegate to the Tuberculosis Congress, claims to have discovered a cure for consumption. He statea that it is neither serum nor vaccine matter. Th.c remedy is preventive and curative. He intends to reserve the secret for a certain period, but he. promises to make a statement to the congress on Saturday. He ie willing to explain the methods, but leaves the profession to apply the cure. He will make a full disclosure next August.

Professor Metchnikoff states that Professor Behring up to tha present had not experimented on human beings with his cure for consumption ; only on animals. His assertions, however, were worthy of notice. Dr Bronardel, of Paris, concurred. October 8.

Professor Behring states that his curative principle is based on the impregnation of living cells in the organs by a substance derived from the, virus of tuberculosis. Experience gained in combating tuberculosis in cattle showed that the treated organisms jyeKO metamorphosed

into bovovaccine until acted on by lympliative cells. This led him to the conception of cellular immunity for those threatened with phthisis and against the consequences of tuberculosis. By experiments made on animals, Professor Biehriiig is convinced that a similar substance is capable of elaboration in the viro as a remedy in human therapeutics. He will immediately hand his substance over for experiment by the medical profession, and will publish the result of his inquiries when he is convinced that it is innocuous.