BENEFICENT MICROBES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 195, 26 November 1910, Page 10

BENEFICENT MICROBES.

Four hundred million microbes are, says the Daily's Mail medical correspondent, being carefully nursed and guarded in the laboratory at St. Bartholomew's Hospital until they can be used as a cure for one of the patients. The patient is suffering from a ehronic empyema, an inflammation of the coverings of the lungs, which has resulted in the formation of abscesses somewhere between the lungs and the encircling ribs. The disease first appeared seven years ago, and was apparently cured by an operation. Since then, however, three fresh outbreaks have occurred in the same region, .showing that the causative germs have never been thoroughly, driven out of the system. The microbes under cultivation are the direct descendants of germs collected from the lung secretions. The part they will play in effecting a permanent cure of the patient was explained by one of the bacteriologists at the laboratory.

"Wc found that three micro-organismsj scientifically known as (1) streptococcic (2) staphyloccoci, and (3) pneumococci were present in about equal quantities in the discharge from the lungs. These germs were therefore cultivated, and when we have grown the three kinds to practically the same microbe-strength, the microbes will be killed by heating the solutions, and a dose of dead microbes, ten millions of each variety, will be injected into the tissues under the skin of the patient's arm. These dead microbes in the patient's body will lead to the formation of substances which will attack and kill the three varieties of live microbes causing the trouble in the lung." At intervals larger doses will be given until finally one hundred million germs can be injected at one time. This maximum dose, it is expected, will complete the rout of the destructive microbes in. the patient's lungs and render the cure]