. THE TUBERCLE BACILLUS IN THE TISSUES OF THE BODY. From " Bacteriology and the Public Health," by Sir George Newman, , (John Murray.) tion by acids, and for long the power of resisting all curative measures which have been tried has been attributed to its protecting cover. An interesting fact relating to this feature of the bacillus is alluded to in The Lancet for June 30, 1923. A certain cater- pillar which infests beehives has great powers of digesting wax, on which it lives. If preparations of the bacillus are injected into it, they are absorbed in a very short while
. THE TUBERCLE BACILLUS IN THE TISSUES OF THE BODY. From " Bacteriology and the Public Health," by Sir George Newman, , (John Murray.) tion by acids, and for long the power of resisting all curative measures which have been tried has been attributed to its protecting cover. An interesting fact relating to this feature of the bacillus is alluded to in The Lancet for June 30, 1923. A certain cater- pillar which infests beehives has great powers of digesting wax, on which it lives. If preparations of the bacillus are injected into it, they are absorbed in a very short while, without any ill effects to the cater- pillar. Professor Dreyer's is not the only preparation of the bacillus of tuberculosis without its coat which has been produced. In 1918 Dostal and Sahler published an account of their successful efforts to remove it, by growing the bacillus for several generations on a special nutritive substance. Professor Dreyer's method is to dissolve off the fatty coat with chemicals—formalin and acetone. Tuberculosis is a chronic disease, and temporary improvement, as well as the typical optimism of the patient, have often prejudiced observers in the past in favour of new curative measures. There have been, for example, periods when consumptives were sub- mitted to every variety of pungent oils—garlic, cinna- mon, and eucalyptus—with the object of suffocating the bacillus ; more recently considerable claims have been made in favour of the Spahlinger treatment, which is said to be capable of application as a measure of pre- vention as well as a cure. But the great test of a cure in tuberculosis is whether a guinea-pig, infected with the bacillus, improves under the treatment. No guinea-pig, however garlic-haunted, has ever been cured ; the Spahlinger treatment is still sub jiidice ; Professor Dreyer's injections have definitely improved the condition of such guinea-pigs. A few cases of human beings have been treated also. It is said that the re
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