The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY OCTOBER 6, 1911.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3341, 6 October 1911, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY OCTOBER 6, 1911.

To Protect the People.

One of the most important addresses given at the recent Medical Congress in Sydney was mat given by Professor Allen, of Melbourne, in regard to the virtues of vaccines and serums. Touching upon smallpox, he quoted many figures to show the value of vaccine. In tiermany, where vaccination and rcvaccination were compulsory, this dread disease had, he said, been practically stamped out. For the ten years ending 1908, in a population of 62,000,000, the greatest number of deaths from smallpox in any year was 65. At Caluya, an isolated island in the Philippines, with a population of 2000, a case of smallpox was introduced. A thousand cases with 400 deaths followed before help came. Two hundred of the inhabitants ran away. Eight hundred

were -vaccinated. Not one case oecui-j red among those of the 800 who had a successful incubation two weeks old. There were no deaths. Accoiding to Professor Allen, vaccination and revaccination should he made compulsoiy everywhere. Directing -attention especially to his own State, he averred that it was estimated that 98 per cent, of the population above the age of 10 years were liable to attack. In the case of animals, vaccines had already proved of great service. Millions of animals had by this means been protected against anthrax. Then again, with reference to hydrophobia, the efficacy of a vaccine which had been discovered was proved by the fact that there were no deaths among over 400 bitten poisons treated at the Pasteur Institute in 1910. Professor Allen then went on to refer to the results which had been obtained in respect of the anti-toxins of diphtheria and tetanus. In the drpntlioria pavilion of the Hospital des infants Malades in Paris, for the four years (1890-93) preceding the adoption of serotherapy, the average mortality was 51.71 per cent. With the use of antitoxin there was a fall at once to less than one-half, and in 1904-5-6 the mortality rates were / .6, 10.11, and 10.45 per cent., or, if cases proving fatal within 48 hours of admission veie excluded, 5.47, 6.97, and 6.4. per cent. The results with tetanus antitoxin had not been so satisfactory as those obtained in diphtheria. According to Professor Allen, the latest and most faireaching development of vaccine therapy had its centre in the researches for a method of vaccination against typhoid fever. The technique, he said, had been gradually improved, and the results had been more and more favorable, till, in 1910, American statistics showed how among over 14,000 persons inoculated the incidence of typhoid was fifteen times less than among those not inoculated. The War Department of the United States had therefore made inoculation compulsory for all employees in the sanitary service of the hospitals, and for all troops at manoeuvres when the drinking water was bad. As to treatment of typhoid by vaccines, experience was small, but some encouraging results were recorded. Touching upon the difficulties encountered in vaccine therapy, Professor Allen declared that they were best exemplified by a study of the results obtained in the treatment of tuberculosis. Before announcing his discovery of tuberculin, Koch, he claimed, definitely proved that lalroratory animals might be maue immune to tubercle by repeated inoculations of tuberculin; and, though the early results of the administration to man were unfavorable, there had been a steadily-growing conviction that tuberculin was a valuable remedy if properly used. The general decrease of the death-rate from tuberculosis had, he need hardly say, been independent of any new modes of treatment, for example, the death-rate from phthisis m Melbourne and its suburbs fell from 22.05 per 10,000 in 1885-89 to 11.33 in 1905-09. Similarly, the marvellous results obtained in 900 cases of tuberculosis disease in the hip at Alexandra Hospital in Bloomsbury were independent of any specific remedies. Belief, however, was now fairly general that tuberculin rendered decided service in the treatment of tubercle. According to the general principle already enunciated, its efficiency was greatest in the strictly localised and least massive forms. “But,” added Professor Allen, “when they inquired how it acted and what was the precise aim in its use the difficulties begin to appear.”