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.

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    And Bauer showed that the guinea-pig infected with tubercle bacilli does not always react with fever, but with some variation of temperature, sometimes above, sometimes below the normal; here, too, the small doses caused fever. _. . r _ If we consider that we are dealing in Cham of Events , ^ , . . . , , . . , .■ human tuberculosis with a chronic infective m disease, with frequent relapses and exacer- Tuberculin Action, bations, the following chain of events in a tuberculin injection given to a tubercular patient seems plausible. By the tubercular infection there arises a surcharge of bacterial protein from the tubercle bacilli; this incites the body, first locally and then in general, to the formation of digestive ferments and leads to the production in the blood of the patient of tubercular anaphylatoxin. Now, with the tuberculin injec- tion new foreign protein is introduced; as in ordinary protein anaphylaxis, this is decomposed by the anaphylatoxin and toxic antibodies are formed which have a harmful action on the cellular protoplasm, causing it to degenerate and soften. From this there result disturbances due to anaphylaxis or hyper- susceptibility, as the expression of the tuberculin reaction. But while in ordinary protein anaphylaxis a fall of temperature is characteristic, owing to the large quantities of protein, in tuber- culosis the reaction due to hypersusceptibility takes the form of tuberculin fever on account of the extremely small doses,- thousands of times below the lethal amount. This event is accompanied on the one hand by a destruction of the bacteria, on the other by a neutralization of the toxins which circulate in the organism of the tubercular patient and thus result the im- provement and sense of general well-being that we, in conjunc- tion with F. Kraus, Saathof, Hager, Longard, and others, have so often observed to follow severe tuberculin reactions. 5.—THE THEORY OF NON-SPECIFIC ACTION. -ru ail. A certain number of authors ascribe the The Albumose , . . tuberculin reaction to the action of non- ' specific substances which pass into the preparation from the culture medium during the manufacture of the tuberculin. This brings us back to the old albumose theory advanced by Kiihne [30], Matthes [31], and Krehl [32], accord- ing to which tuberculin action is explained in the following way : The tuberculin, which contains abundant albumoses, is, after injection, attracted to the albumoses in the diseased areas and