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The Story Of Germ Life

H >> H. W. Conn >> The Story Of Germ Life




It is evident that all these facts give us very little
encouragement that we shall ever be able to cure diseases directly
by means of drugs to destroy bacteria, but, on the contrary, that
we must ever depend upon the resisting powers of the body. They
teach us, moreover, along what line we must look for the future
development of curative medicine. It is evident that scientific
medicine must turn its attention toward the strengthening and
stimulating of the resisting and curative forces of the body. It
must be the physician's aim to enable the body to resist the
poisons as well as possible and to stimulate it to re-enforce its
resistant forces. Drugs have a place in medicine, of course, but
this place is chiefly to stimulate the body to react against its
invading hosts. They are, as a rule, not specific against definite
diseases. We can not hope for much in the way of discovering
special medicines adapted to special diseases. We must simply look
upon them as means which the physician has in hand for stimulating
the natural forces of the body, and these may doubtless vary with
different individual natures. Recognising this, we can see also
the logic of the small dose as compared to the large dose. A small
dose of a drug may serve as a stimulant for the lagging forces,
while a larger dose would directly repress them or produce
injurious secondary effects. As soon as we recognise that the aim
of medicine is not to destroy the disease but rather to stimulate
the resisting forces of the body, the whole logic of therapeutics
assumes a new aspect.

Physicians have understood this, and, especially in recent years,
have guided their practice by it. If a moderate dose of quinine
will check malaria in a few days, it does not follow that twice
the dose will do it in half the time or with twice the certainty.
The larger doses of the past, intended to drive out the disease,
have been everywhere replaced by smaller doses designed to
stimulate the lagging body powers. The modern physician makes no
attempt to cure typhoid fever, having long since learned his
inability to do this, at least if the fever once gets a foothold;
but he turns his attention to every conceivable means of
increasing the body's strength to resist the typhoid poison,
confident that if he can thus enable the patient to resist the
poisoning effects of the typhotoxine his patient will in the end
react against the disease and drive off the invading bacteria. The
physician's duty is to watch and guard, but he must depend upon
the vital powers of his patient to carry on alone the actual
battle with the bacterial invaders.

ANTITOXINES.

In very recent times, however, our bacteriologists have been
pointing out to the world certain entirely new means of assisting
the body to fight its battles with bacterial diseases. As already
noticed, one of the primal forces in the recovery, from some
diseases, at least, is the development in the body of a substance
which acts as an antidote to the bacterial poison. So long as this
antitoxine is not present the poisons produced by the disease will
have their full effect to weaken the body and prevent the revival
of its resisting powers to drive off the bacteria. Plainly, if it
is possible to obtain this antitoxine in quantity and then
inoculate it into the body when the toxic poisons are present, we
have a means for decidedly assisting the body in its efforts to
drive off the parasites. Such an antidote to the bacterial poison
would not, indeed, produce a cure, but it would perhaps have the
effect of annulling the action of the poisons, and would thus give
the body a much greater chance to master the bacteria. It is upon
this principle that is based the use of antitoxines in diphtheria
and tetanus

It will be clear that to obtain the antitoxine we must depend upon
some natural method for its production. We do not know enough of
the chemical nature of the antitoxines to manufacture them
artificially. Of course we can not deny the possibility of their
artificial production, and certain very recent experiments
indicate that perhaps they may be made by the agency of
electricity. At present, however, we must use natural methods, and
the one commonly adopted is simple. Some animal is selected whose
blood is harmless to man and that is subject to the disease to be
treated. For diphtheria a horse is chosen. This animal is
inoculated with small quantities of the diphtheria poison without
the diphtheria bacillus. This poison is easily obtained by causing
the diphtheria bacillus to grow in common media in the laboratory
for a while, and the toxines develop in quantity; then, by proper
filtration, the bacteria themselves can be removed, leaving a pure
solution of the toxic poison. Small quantities of this poison are
inoculated into the horse at successive intervals. The effect on
the horse is the same as if the animal had the disease. Its cells
react and produce a considerable quantity of the antitoxine which
remains in solution in the blood of the animal. This is not
theory, but demonstrated fact. The blood of a horse so treated is
found to have the effect of neutralizing the diphtheria poison,
although the blood of the horse before such treatment has no such
effect. Thus there is developed in the horse's blood a quantity of
the antitoxine, and now it may be used by physicians where needed.
If some of this horse's blood, properly treated, be inoculated
into the body of a person who is suffering from diphtheria, its
effect, provided the theory of antitoxines is true, will be to
counteract in part, at least, the poisons which are being produced
in the patient by the diphtheria bacillus. This does not cure the
disease nor in itself drive off the bacilli, but it does protect
the body from the poisons to such an extent as to enable it more
readily to assert its own resisting powers.

This method of using antitoxines as a help in curing disease is
very recent, and we can not even guess what may come of it. It has
apparently been successfully applied in diphtheria. It has also
been used in tetanus with slight success. The same principle has
been used in obtaining an antidote for the poison of snake bites,
since it has appeared that in this kind of poisoning the body will
develop an antidote to the poison if it gets a chance. Horses have
been treated in the same way as with the diphtheria poison, and in
the same way they develop a substance which neutralizes the snake
poison. Other diseases are being studied to-day with the hope of
similar results. How much further the principle will go we can not
say, nor can we be very confident that the same principle will
apply very widely. The parasitic diseases are so different in
nature that we can hardly expect that a method which is
satisfactory in meeting one of the diseases will be very likely to
be adapted to another. Vaccination has proved of value in
smallpox, but is not of use in other human diseases. Inoculation
with weakened germs has proved of value in anthrax and fowl
cholera, but will not apply to all diseases. Each of these
parasites must be fought by special methods, and we must not
expect that a method that is of value in one case must necessarily
be of use elsewhere. Above all, we must remember that the
antitoxines do not cure in themselves; they only guard the body
from the weakening effects of the poisons until it can cure
itself, and, unless the body has resisting powers, the antitoxine
will fail to produce the desired results.

One further point in the action of the antitoxines must be
noticed. As we have seen, a recovery from an attack of most germ
diseases renders the individual for a time immune against a second
attack. This applies less, however, to a recovery after the
artificial inoculation with antitoxine than when the individual
recovers without such aid. If the individual recovers quite
independently of the artificial antitoxine, he does so in part
because he has developed the antitoxines for counteracting the
poison by his own powers. His cellular activities have, in other
words, been for a moment at least turned in the direction of
production of antitoxines. It is to be expected, therefore, that
after the recovery they will still have this power, and so long as
they possess it the individual will have protection from a second
attack. When, however, the recovery results from the artificial
inoculation of antitoxine the body cells have not actively
produced antitoxine. The neutralization of the poisons has been a
passive one, and after recovery the body cells are no more engaged
in producing antitoxine than before. The antitoxine which was
inoculated is soon eliminated by secretion, and the body is left
with practically the same liability to attack as before. Its
immunity is decidedly fleeting, since it was dependent not upon
any activity on the part of the body, but upon an artificial
inoculation of a material which is rapidly eliminated by
secretion.

CONCLUSION.

It is hoped that the outline which has been given of the bacterial
life of Nature may serve to give some adequate idea of these
organisms and correct the erroneous impressions in regard to them
which are widely prevalent. It will be seen that, as our friends,
bacteria play a vastly more important part in Nature than they do
as our enemies. These plants are minute and extraordinarily
simple, but, nevertheless, there exists a large number of
different species. The number of described forms already runs far
into the hundreds, and we do not yet appear to be approaching the
end of them. They are everywhere in Nature, and their numbers are
vast beyond conception. Their powers of multiplication are
inconceivable, and their ability to produce profound chemical
changes is therefore unlimited. This vast host of living beings
thus constitutes a force or series of forces of tremendous
significance. Most of the vast multitude we must regard as our
friends. Upon them the farmer is dependent for the fertility of
his soil and the possibility of continued life in his crops. Upon
them the dairyman is dependent for his flavours. Upon them
important fermentative industries are dependent, and their
universal powers come into action upon a commercial scale in many
a place where we have little thought of them in past years. We
must look upon them as agents ever at work, by means of which the
surface of Nature is enabled to remain fresh and green. Their
power is fundamental, and their activities are necessary for the
continuance of life. A small number of the vast host, a score or
two of species, unfortunately for us, find their most favourable
living place in the human body, and thus become human parasites.
By their growth they develop poisons and produce disease. This
small class of parasites are then decidedly our enemies. But,
taken all together, we must regard the bacteria as friends and
allies. Without them we should not have our epidemics, but without
them we should not exist. Without them it might be that some
individuals would live a little longer, if indeed we could live at
all. It is true that bacteria, by producing disease, once in a
while cause the premature death of an individual; once in a while,
indeed, they may sweep off a hundred or a thousand individuals;
but it is equally true that without them plant and animal life
would be impossible on the face of the earth.

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