DIPHTHERIA.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2791, 4 March 1882, Page 2

DIPHTHERIA.

A celebrated American physician Has been experimenting on the nature of the contagium of of diphtheria—a task all the more praiseworthy in view of the unaccountable revival of this terrible disease within the last few years. Dr Wood, the physician in question, has been inoculating rabbits with d.iptheric membrane taken from the throats of patients at Philadelphia; but it was found that only in a few cases was diphtheria produced in the rabbit by such experiments. Tuberculosis, however, was often induced, and Dr Wood has shown that this is an indirect result of the inoculation. Subsequent experiments ’ connected with the outbreak of diphtheria on Lake Michigan last summer show that in every case th« blood was more or less full of micrococci. The blood of patients in Philadelphia and elsewhere has shown the same objects abundantly present. Dr Wood endeavored to prove whether these micrococci were the cause of the disease,as it has been shown that usually the infectious character of diphtheria depends upon its solid particles. Micrococci were obtained from patientsand inoculated upon rabbits, and the result was most fatal. Dr Wood believes the following to bo an outline of the natural history of diphtheria A child suffers from a severe catarrh, under the stimulation of whoso inflate* mation micrococci begin to grow. This is transformed into an active organism, and thus a self-generated dihptheris results. Of course with proper treatment, the disease may be arrested before it gets beyond the condition of a severe sore throat. Conditions outside the body may favour the development of inert into active micrococci, and at last the air may even become laden with the latter organisms, which disseminate the disease when they alight upon the delicate mucous membranes of children. The next thing to be studied is—how. to convert these active micrococci into the inert and harmless condition.