THE TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2680, 8 November 1882, Page 4

THE TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.

[Melbourne “Argus.”] The recent researches of Koch and Pasteur have given a new vigor and interest to the inquiries into the cause and the treatment of that scourge of mankind, tubercular phthisis.. The theory of Koch is that consumption is.due to the presence of a parasite, and consequently.it is urged that the disease is to be attacked by the patient adopting conditions under which it is impossible for the parasite to live. Evidence of the soundness of tho view propounded by Koch is daily accumulating. Thus, at a meeting of the Glasgow branch of the British Medical Association, Dr'. Coats exhibited a preparation of sputum from a consumptive case in which the tubercular bacillus tho parasite in question — : was well seen. The bacilli appeared as bright red threads with heads on them. Dr. Coats also showed tho bacillus in a preparation from a mesenteric gland. Koch himself does not profess to say to what extent pathology and surgory can utilise the knowledge of the parasitic natb.ro of tuberculosis, hut in all parts of tho world tho medical profession are experimenting on the basis of his discovery, and are detailing existing modes of treatment which support the theory, and which are now seen to have a scientific basis.

lathe September number of the “ Australian Medical Journal ” we have the text of an interesting paper read by Mr F. T. West Ford before the Medical Society of Victoria on a cognate subject. Mr Ford said that his object was not to treat learnedly and scientifically of phthisis, but to notice certain experiments that have been made and are being continued in Victoria on sheep suffering from the disease of the lungs and air passages commonly called lung - worm disease. Some three years ago the attention of Mr Ford’s brother-in-law, Mr A. H. Knight,of Koyongah, was called to a statement appearing in the “ Lancet ” of a cure of a case of gangrene in the lung by the continued inhalation of the fumes of carbolic acid. Mr Knight is a large sheep owner, who has suffered much loss through the lung disease, and it occurred to him that what would cure the one disease would be a remedy: for the other. Mr Ford, who was consulted, concurred, and when in England purchased the largest steam spray-producer obtainable. The Messrs Calvert, the celebrated carbolic acid makers, advised the' use of dry fumes, generated by pouring the acid into a heated metal cylinder, and appliances for both modes of treatment were sent out. A proper, air-tight room was prepared, and great goodresultedfromboth modes of treatment, but much more from the moist than the dry, especially when the proper strength,of the solution, namely, 1 in 10, was ascertained. The room now used contains hundreds of lambs at a time, and compressed air is employed to generate the spray, and with great advantage, especially in renewing the vitality of the atmosphere. The sheep are kept in the room for two hours at a time, and generally one treatment is sufficient. The lungworm disease is due to a parasite, and now that tubercular consumption is believed to bo of a parasitic nature, Mr Ford is prompted to inquire whether it is not worth while applying this treatment to the human being. “ Of courge,” he writes, “ circumstances alter cases, and I would not propose to treat human beings exactly like sheep, but I do think that if they were kept in an atmosphere of carbolic acid many cures might be effected.” The inhalation of carbolic acid by the consumptive patient was, it may be remarked, spoken of with favour by Mr F. J. Faraday in a paper read on August 30th, before the British Association. This paper has attracted more attention than almost any other submitted at the present Southampton meetings, in consequence of its dealing with a subject which is largely in the public mind. Pasteur’s discovery of the decreasing virulence of disease germs in the presence of oxygen, and Koch’s discovery of germs in tuberculosis, ought, says Mr Faraday,«to be considered together. In oxygen the bacillus becomes enfeebled, and here, he argues, we have the reason why tuberculosis is prevalent among persons engaged in dusty trades, in vitiated atmospheres, or in sedentary occupations which preclude healthy exercise. The Pasteur experiments, urges Mr Faraday, warrant the conclusion that germs which would be harmless in an atmosphere in which the normal supply of free oxygen is present may be transformed by the absence of oxygen into the fatal bacilli of consumption. If the theory that the germ or bacillus can be rendered potent or impotent according as it is shut out from or introduced to oxygen, and if consumption is traceable to the bacillus, then-, urges Mr Faraday, there can be no doubt as to the line which medical treatment should take. The decrease of mortality from consumption in the army since the improvement of barrack ventilation, and the relief afforded to patients by sea voyages, by the air of pine woods, and by similar remedies, wore also referred to in support of the hypothesis. Here also, it may be added, we have the justification of the views insisted upon strenuously by the late Dr. Day, of Geelong, of the importance of a free use in hospital wards and elsewhere of oxygen “ transformed into ozone or into peroxide of hydrogen, its two most active forms.” In the discussion which took place at the Medical Society upon Mr Ford’s paper, Messrs Allen, Williams, and Turner remarked that Mr Ford had gone too far in speaking of the dependence of tubercular phthisis upon the presence of bacilli as absolutely proved. In reply, Mr Ford remarked that as to the parasitic origin of of phthisis, Koch had reproduced the bacilli over and over again in culture fluids, and then inoculated them into animals, and tubercles again resulted containing similar bacilli. He had not come to assert that tubercular phthisis was a result of [parasites ; but if it was, he thought the results of antiseptic treatment in the parasitic diseases of sheep were well worthy of consideration. With men, as with sheep, the great necessity would be to treat the cases early enough, and so avoid a fatal result. No doubt the bacilli are so wrapped up in the lung that the carbolic acid would take longer to reach them than it would to kill the worms in the bronchial tubes of sheep, but still the principle of treatment would be the same, although they would have to

Lscover tho best way to carry it out. He bad heard of gentlemen suffering from ffithisis who were kept in a room saturated dmost to suffocation with carbolic acid, ml in whom marked improvement followed.