The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EYERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DEC. 22, 1906.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1962, 22 December 1906, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EYERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DEC. 22, 1906.

The days o£ tho physician are numbered, and the bacteriologist is destined to take his placo. This is no vain prediction or haphazard guesswork, but a statement grounded upon scientific discovery and supported by the most encouraging results in actual practice, It is not a surprise, there* lore, to learn from time to time that now and successful remedies have been discovered for now and old diseases and that Professor This or Professor That has found a specific for one disease or another that infest human life. But tho method of doing it is perhaps as great a puzzle to the general public as tho true nature of tho diseases has been to the old-time physicians for centuries past. Therefore, when the average reader scans the cablegram published yesterday, announcing tho fact that “Professor ‘ Koch, assisted by two English ‘ doctors, is curing thousands of cases ‘of sleeping sieknoss in Victoria • Nyarzi districts by moans of a ‘specific known as atoxyl, which 1 exterminates the germs of the disease ‘in the blood within six hours,” he will, most likely, regard it with some degree of satisfaction and pass on to the next subject without realising its full import. He may do more than that if perchance his own body happens to be attacked by the übiquitous microbe and he falls ill. His first impulse then may be to disregard the bacteriologist who may be able to cure him, if one is available, and to send for some quack who makes decoctions from roots or leaves and who is groping in the. dark as to the nature of the disease and even as to the chemical effects of his decoctions upon the system of tho patient ; but who is willing to try experiments upon any patient for a fee. In these eircum* stances it is permissible to point out the difference between the up-to-date methods of tho bacteriologist and the obsolote practices of the physician pure and simple whether he holds a diploma from a medical school or not. / .

But before wo procoed further it is nocosaary to say that the subject matter hereof or its treatment lit i no local application whatovor. Since the days of tho alchomist ihoro hi t existed a universal notion that illness of any description could bo cured if only tho proper antidote in the sliapo of coni'* decoction taken into the stomach count be found and administered, and the whole trend of sciontilie research wi. •

until quite recoutly governed by that notiou. The chemist roplacod the alchemist, nud by hia expotorients and diaeovoriou of tonics and laxatives often wrought what worn in those days regarded as'miraculous cures; but the theory upon which the work was done was a false one though some very good results were sometimes obtained and an immense amouut of ingenuity displayed in the combating ol diseases, iiuc the reasons why success was sometimes uttaiued was not clearly understood auy more than tho true uatu’e of the diseases theuioelves, for tho only j iking that tho physician could attempt was 10 employ tonics in cases of low vitality, laxatives, sodatives, or »noI dynes, as the case may be, to relieve feverishness, neivous tension, or such ether symptoms as presented themselves, upon tho assumption that certain vital organa couiil be restored to the peiiormuuce of their proper functions uuder tho influence of suitable drugs aud tho disease romovod thereby. This method of treatment was successful simply because it enabled the patient to retain sufficient vitality to resist tho ravages of d'sea so beyond the ounce.! moment, though it was never suspected that the cyclic periods of diseaso, though they were observed aud noted, were duo to some thing which no drug administered into the stomach, or oven hypodermically, could reach, and it was not until the microscope revealed the presence of minute living organisms as the true cause of all diseases that the real truth dawned upon the investigators. This revelation opened up a new field for research, and completely upset the older theories; yet the physician was indispensible, for until Pa3teur found tho only way of getting at the mis-< chievous microbe the only thing possible was to follow the old chemical plan. Pasteur found that distinctive diseases were due'to distinctive types of organisms, and by most elaborate and dangerous experiments he proved that this was so by inoculating animals of various kinds with virus containing colonies of different species of bacteria, and in each ease he found that each separate colony produced its characteristic disease”, ilia next step was to find, if possible, the means of killing these organisms in the system of the infected patient, and the discovery that they invariably attacked the blood corpuscles in certain favored localities according to type, assisted him materially in his grand work, in most cases he succeeded in classifying the organisms, and in some cases, such as bubonic plague, he also succeeded in finding the poison that would kill it aud allow the corpuscles to resume their ordinary activity, and in all cases where this condition was brought about the patient recovered, the only danger to life being iu tho delay of the application of the treatment until the organism had done his fatal work. Pasteur’s pupil, i)r Koch, referred to in tho cable, has since Pasteur's lamented death continued h s grand work, aud others have followed ins example, and to-day it is recognised that not only absolute aud certain cum in all cases of iufection but complete immunity from any form of disease are made possible by the thorough recog ■ nition and classification of bacteria and the finding of their destructive agents. With this object in view bacteiiologis- s are cultivating those organisms, classifying them, studying their hubu s, endeavoiing to find out their natural habitat and diet, term of development aud existence, and, above all, their natural enemies or tho agency that will destroy them. From what he i been already ascertained by these efforts, diseases that were hitherto considered incurable are now uuder the complete control of the bactoiiok- ■ gist, ana when the investigations are finished (whenever that may bej humanity will have nothing to fear from aught else tkau natural senility and who will say that even that wil not succumb to expanding knowledge. Yet while the bacteriologist is gathering up the reins of control over the denizens of microscopic obscurity the physician and tho chemist have not lost their uso3, because in all forms of disease it is necessary to compensate chemically the vitality destroyed by the organisms, and so the physician or chemist will continue to exist as an auxiliary to tho bacteriologist; but he will cease to be regarded a s the healer of mankind.