Tuberculin in diagnosis and treatment : a text-book of the specific diagnosis and therapy of tuberculosis for practitioners and students / By Dr. Bandelier ... and Dr. Roepke.

  • Bandelier, B. (Bruno), 1871-1924.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tuberculin in diagnosis and treatment : a text-book of the specific diagnosis and therapy of tuberculosis for practitioners and students / By Dr. Bandelier ... and Dr. Roepke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    32/350 (page 12)
    I.- -Theoretical Part. Experience has proved the victory of tuberculin as a dia- gnostic and therapeutic, agent in the fields both of experimental research and of clinical investigation. To-day we know that the original conception of its discoverer, Robert Koch, of the nature of tuberculin action-and reaction was based on a false foundation. The failures of the first tuberculin era can be traced to this miscon- ception. With increased knowledge of suitable methods of administration and with the improvement of results, the need arose of understanding the phenomena which occur, of explaining the causes underlying them, and of applying the knowledge gained to the further development of the treatment. Thus in course of time there arose a number of theories to explain the action of tuberculin which differ from each other in many and important details, and of which many are still unrefuted and unreconciled. The views as to the explanation of the elective action of tuberculin on the tubercular process and the specificity of the tuberculin reaction are especially contradictory and different. These disagreements are emphasized by sceptics and critics, who argue that they go to prove the absence of specificity in tuberculin action. In discussing the most important of these theories we must acknowledge that we still lack a really satisfactory explanation of the physiological events in tuberculin action. But we hope and expect to interest the prac- titioner in the theory of the subject, because it helps to simplify and deepen the understanding of many a clinical fact in diagnosis and treatment, and because it probably forms a basis starting from which future research will reach the goal. The most important theories of the tuberculin reaction will first be discussed, and secondly the curative action of tuberculin. In this we shall make use both of our own work and the most impor- tant results of research in the study of immunity [i]. In the arrangement of the matter we follow the method of F. Meyer [2].