Treatment of bacterial diseases / [Sheridan Delépine].

  • Delépine, Sheridan, 1855-1921.
Date:
[1891?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatment of bacterial diseases / [Sheridan Delépine]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    phytalbumoses—i.e., albumoses produced by vegetable cells, whether bacterial or others—an important work, which led him to infer later on that albumoses were products intermediate between the non-poisonous albuminous sub- stancesof theculture media and the most poisonous alkaloids. Biichner, Wooldridge, Hankin, and others were also discover- ing toxic albuminous substances in various fluids or tissues of the body, some of which were deadly to bacteria.) Returning now to preventive inoculation, we find that in 1889 Sydney Martin in London, and Hankin of Cambridge working in Koch's and Brieger's laboratories, had isolated from cultiva- tions of the bacillus anthracis albumoses which were found by Hankin to produce immunity from the disease when injected into the body. Possibly under the influ- ence of Hankin, certainly later in the year, the important researches of Fraenkel and Brieger on the toxalbumins of diphtheria, typhoid fever, cholera, tetanus, &c., were published. Thus, just as in the case of many remedies used for centuries in the shape of powders, extracts, decoctions, infusions, tinctures, &c., active principles have ultimately been discovered by chemists, it was noiu found that out of the material used for the last ten years by Pasteur and his school, it was possible to isolate some active products of definite composition, to which the lymphs or vaccins owe their prophylactic and curative properties. Such was the state of science when, in the course of last year, it was announced that Koch had found the means of curing phthisis by inoculation. All minds were to a certain extent prepared for such an announcement; yet the fact that one of the greatest scourges affecting human kind had at last come within the pale of treat ment has created immense sensation. The little that 18 known of the treatment and of its effects seems to point clearly to the fact that Koch is using some of the chemical