A MEDICAL ITEM.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3181, 29 March 1911, Page 2

A MEDICAL ITEM.

—— ■"—*». COAL TAR AS A CURATIVE. “The medical world is ringing with the praises of the so-called *’6o6’ a coal-tar compound that is said to be instantly fatal to the dreaded spiroehaeta, the germ of the worst of human blood diseases,” savs Dr. 11. Sweitzer in “Science.” The discoverv of this compound comes as an incident in a long series of chemical researches carried on by Dr. Paul Ehrlicln a German physician and chemist, and Nobel. prize T winner. They have devoted themselves wholly to the parasites belonging to the animal kingdom—the two already mentioned and the trypanosome of sleepingsickness. and their discoveries are based primarily on the fact that some of the coal-tar colours stain the disease germs readij- while others do not. They have' assumed that when this selective staining action occurs, the germ will be more apt to succumb to the chemical agent: and apparently they are right. There is scarcely a department in med’ieipe that lias not directly benefited through the discoverv cf the coal-tar products, duel especially of the an aline dves. It has provided the antomist and pathologist with the means of staining various tissues and thus or studying not only their normal 'structure, hut the alterations caused by disease.’’ -