The Daily News MONDAY, AUGUST 6.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8174, 6 August 1906, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, AUGUST 6.

THE WHITE DEATH. t Man's strenuous fight against that j scourge of the hnman race, tuberculosis, j is slowly but surely bringing about the i possibility of the complete downfall of I that dreaded common enemy. Open- ' air treatment has undoubtedly, where ' persistently practiced, reduced mortality, and at the worst, prolonged the life of victims who hare had timely recourse to its recuperative powers. Consumption, however, Btill continues Us ravages, with almost unabated fury, for while the lives of the Btricken may be prolonged, their ranks are ever boing swelled by new recruits. The law of the treatment of consumption is well known. In plain language it consists of building up and fortifying the body to a strength sufficient to overcome the death dealing microbes. The latest developments in tubtrculeiis research however, are mor* important than anything heretofore sought to be applied to the eradication of tk* disease, What >s known at the opsonin treatment, while still ia the experimental stage, has for eighteen months been making steady progress. It is founded on] what appears to be the universal law of the defence of the body against the

invading host of hostile microorganisms, The treatment essentially consists, in the words of a specialist, in the education of the powers of resistence latent in the human body—in this instance the opsonins—so that they are produced in quantity sufficient to paralyse the bacteria of disease, and thereby render these germs a ready prey to the phagocytes—those policemen of the blood that remove parasites and other deleterious invaders, dead or alive, from the blood and tissues. The opsonin index of the blood, therefore, is the capacity of the phagocytes, to leal with and destroy the invading organisms. Describing the process of treatment, the authority mentioned \bove says it is roally in.harmony with Dr Koch's method, and is not confined fcj tuberculosis. In the case of consumption, and other for ns ot < ulierculosis, the opsonins—or, rather, the opsonjn-producing element of the blood or tissues—are stron„'thsned by the injection of minute quantities of the dead b\< cm of the disease. Everyone has hesc elements in the blood, jut they have nit hitherto been suflleiently educated. Very remarkable re suits have already been achieved in ibis way in the treatment of eonsump. tion, lupus, and certain forms of rheumatism. The details of tlio p'ocess of treatment aro described by an experl in a reoent number of the " Pall Mai Gazette." " Let us snppose," he says, " a man subject to tuberculosis, whicl as w# know, is a baoterium. Th it is a sure proof that his body has not the power of dealing with this particulai parasite adequately to its own protec tion. The opsonin treatmont begin: by the tubercle b..Jterium being culti vate I in a sort of broth, killed by heat and the products injected into th< patient's body. Very great care ii require 1 in the process of inoculation as an overdose would render the treat ment ineffectual." The ssmc authority asked what me is age he had fy humanity with regard to this lates phase of the conflict with con>umption particularly counselled patience "Tliere is," he said, " too much inclina tion on the part of the lay Press and public to think that the campaign is over so soon as an outpost is taken. The battle against tuberculosis is going 11 the right direction; that faot wa assured from the moment we had dis covered and localised the parasite Henceforth, it is only a question o time and education—especially of edu cation, so far as the public is con : cerned—before the monster is exter minatcd.