ALCOHOL AND INFECTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 13

ALCOHOL AND INFECTION.

The first of rho ilarbpn lectures was given j at King's College one Friday a few weeks , back, when i'rolessor Ehe Metchnikort, of the Pasteur Institute, -Paris, lectured on the abo\e subject. Amongst other things, the professor -explained that a man might ai nex very con*ix'rora.ljle numbers of diphtheria, ehoera, and other bacilli wnncut de\ eloping the corresponding diseases, and that healthy persons otten harbour the bacilli of typhoid fever in, considerable quantities. " During the past few years experiments ha^e proved that the essence of immunity l:es in tho living element of the beny, and that it is the phagocytes, or wlite blood corpuscles, which hinder the microbe from multiplying, kill them, and make thorn entirely oVappear. Alcohol, ho declared, had not only a bad effect upon the nervous sv^tein, but had a very harmful action upon t-he phasoiyles, and hindered them in their work and prevented them from being the defenders of the body against the invasion of bacilli. This had been demonstrated by experiments upon animals. It had been proved that a dog and a pigeon, in their natural state, tan resist even a larger injection of the bacter a of tetanus, but give them a portion of whisky, and within 24 hours after they are quickly killed by tetanus. The Algerian sheep is immune from -anthrax, but. after a dopp of alcohol, it contracts the di^onse ami die<=. Dr Eurich observed that the victims of anthrax in Brae' ord factor es were not ahs r ainer«. but usua Iy tipplers. — Glad Tidings, January 6, 1907. j The medical petition in favour of the • compulsory teaching of hygiene and the principles of temperance in the 6choo!s of Great Britdin has received 14,718 signatures , so far. | In Germany during the pa«t five years , alcohol W'xS found to be resporsible for 55 ' per wn + '■•f the ac : rl<"n<= on water; 87 pc cent of all txv^ons amMed and c ent :•> the hons.p of corrcct'on were intoxicaud at the turrc.