Tuberculin treatment / by Clive Riviere and Egbert Morland.

Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tuberculin treatment / by Clive Riviere and Egbert Morland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    known as the tuberculin reaction, which thus becomes the test of tubercular sensitiveness. This phenomenon shows itself typically in a threefold manner : as a local reaction at the place of injection, as a focal reaction at the site of tubercular disease, and as a general dis- turbance mainly of the nervous system leading to fever, malaise, pains, and other symptoms (page 29). Any one or more of these factors may be absent in a particular case. Where tuberculin is applied to the tissues locally, as by the cutaneous and conjunctival test and only the local manifestations appear, these are as much a test of tubercular sensitiveness, that is the i^ower of the tissues to activate tuberculin, as is the appearance of the three- fold phenomenon under subcutaneous injection. The Immunising Response.—The tuberculin re- action is so striking a phenomenon that it is apt to distract attention from the less noticeable rebound which in most cases immediately follows it, and constitutes a phase of at least equal importance in the whole immunis- ing response. This rebound is characterised by a feeling of increased well being, with diminution of symptoms previously present and improvement in areas of local disease. It corresponds, as we shall see later on, to an increase of antibody content in the blood, and to a lessened response to injected tuberculin. TUBERCULAR SENSITIVENESS What peculiar properties do the tissues of the tuber- cular acquire which make them susceptible to products of the tubercle bacillus which are innocuous to the healthy ? Any wide discussion of the numerous theories ad-