On the nature, action, and therapeutic value of the active principles of tuberculin : an investigation / by William Hunter.

  • Hunter, William, 1861-1937.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature, action, and therapeutic value of the active principles of tuberculin : an investigation / by William Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    On the Nature, Action, and Therapeutic Value of the Active Principles of Tuberculin. An Investigation By WILLIAM HUNTER, M.D., M.R.C.P., F.R.S.E. Assistant Physician to the London Fever Hospital; Research Scholar of the Grocers’ Company. (From the Laboratory of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.) Koch’s remedy for tuberculosis is a glycerine extract of pure cultivations of the tubercle bacillus. The remarkable properties possessed by it, unfortunately for evil as well as for good, are, according to Koch, due to one active principle present in such small quantity as to constitute probably little more than a fraction of 1 per cent, of the whole. The following is his description of the chemical properties and behaviour of this substance. Koch’s Statements as to the Nature of the Active Principle. It can be precipitated from the impure extract by abso- lute alcohol—still, however, impure and associated with various other insoluble extractive substances which are also alleged to be present along with it. By suitable methods it can be freed from these latter, so that it is possible to obtain it in a comparatively pure condition. As these other substances have, it is stated, no action at all,