ALLEGED CONSUMPTION CURE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2126, 18 November 1890, Page 3

ALLEGED CONSUMPTION CURE.

Berlin, Nov, 14, Dr Koch promises to disclose his method of consumption cure at a lecture to be given on the 27th inst. Dr Koch explains that by his process phthisis in its first stages is absolutely curable, while in its later stages great benefit is derived. Dr Libberts, of Berlin, supplies lymph to thousands of patients daily. Nov. 15. Dr Koch is ill, having been inoculated with lymph, and it is feared that tuberculosis has set in. Dr Libberts, of Berlin, is selling a consumptive lymph, the compenent parts of which are not revealed. It is claimed that it kills the tubercle tissues, not the baccilis, and that the former is afterwards removed by a surgical operation. Adelaide, Nov. 15. The Premier is communicating with other colonies with reference to sending a medical man to examine into Dr Koch’s cure for con sumption •

Dr Fred. Bird, of Melbourne, has had private letters from Professor H. B. Allen, of the Melbourne University, who is now in Berlin, and who has been afforded an opportunity of going over Dr Koch’s extensive laboratories. Professor Allen (says the Argus), in describing the work of the congress, made allusion to tbe Phthisis which Dr Koch read before the congress. The savant described a number of chemical substances which would destroy the bacillus, but which could not be injected in sufficient quantities to kill the germ without poisoning the whole organism, and went on to show that he had at last found a substance which was fatal to the tubercular guest without injuring its living host. His experiments were carried out almost entirely upon animals, and especially guinea-pigs, which are particularly susceptible to tubercular disease. After inoculating a number of guinea-pigs with the genuine tubercle of phthisis, some of them were subjected to further treatment, while a special remedial substance was injected into the others. Dp Koch, with characteristic reticence, declined to divulge the exact preparation which be used as a prophylactic until he should have absolutely convinced himself of its efficacy, and it is not clear at present whether the substance which he injected was the attenuated virus of tuberculosis, or seme distinct chemical agent. The analogy of similar experiments in other directions would seem to show that the attenuated virus would be used as a remedy, but tbe line of research adopted by Dr Koch in this case indicated that he had found some chemical compound which would do the work required. The result of the experiment was that all the guineapigs which bad been treated with the remedial agent recovered, while tbe others died in a very short time of well-defined tubercular disease. Dr Koch had not experimented upon any human subjects when the most recent advices were despatched, and it is considered impossible that the truth of such a startling theory can be established without a series of exhaustive tests. Dr Fred. Bird points out that a difficulty in the way of the treatment would be found in tbe fact that phthisis has no regular stage of incubation like the other diseases in which inoculation has been successfully practised. The satisfactory results which have been derived in such cases are based upon a knowledge of the exact stage which the disease has reached, and inoculation has been applied so that the remedial agont has time to outrun the course of the original complaint. Dr Koch is the discoverer of the bacillus of cholera, and in making that discovery known to the world he exercised the same cautious reticence as he has shown in connection with his last and infinitely more important discovery. During his researches be found that, contrary to his expectation, the bacillus of phthisis was not very tenacious of life, and succumbed immediately to exposure to sunlight. Even ordinary daylight, too, was found to be fatal to it. Among the medical profession, the greatest interest is taken in Dr Koch’s work, and it is declared that if successful, the system will be the greatest triumph that medical science has ever achieved.