An address on the position of the state in respect to modern bacteriological research : delivered before a General Meeting of the XIth International Medical Congress, held in Rome, 1894 / by V. Babes ; abstracted and translated by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Victor Babeș
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address on the position of the state in respect to modern bacteriological research : delivered before a General Meeting of the XIth International Medical Congress, held in Rome, 1894 / by V. Babes ; abstracted and translated by F. Parkes Weber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Endemic dysentery probably depends on similar insanitary conditions, and our latest experiments show that it is only m part dependent on amoebae, in part also on other microbes related to putrefactive bacilli and those of suppura- tion. The same causes are at work also in the production of the ulcerative intestinal inflammation of the East, which may be associated with hepatic abscess. The common exanthemata constitute a different group, and attack children especially. Though we do not yet know their exact nature, experience has taught us important points concerning them. For instance, the vaccination against small-pox is of the greatest importance, and it is dis- graceful that with the present state of sanitary organisation so many civilised countries should still suffer so much from this disease. Those authorities may well think of this, who look for all cure in a specific treatment of diseases, for,with our present deficiency in sanitary organisation, the rooting up of a disease by such methods is hardly to be expected ; the German army, however, shows us that by careful and rational arrangements something may really be done in this direction. In the treatment of diphtheria, the most terrible of child- ren’s diseases, some hints have certainly been derived from the discovery of the bacillus, but disinfection of the pharynx and “serum tlierapie ” have as yet in the case of human beings not given sufficiently sure results. The protection afforded by serum injections, comparable to Roux’s measures against tetanus, is, however, in some cases probably worth a trial. In the treatment of diphtheria, the presence in the mouth and pharynx of streptococci is a difficulty; I am sure that they cause septic infection in diphtheria, and believe that the term “ pseudo-diphtheritic bacilli ” includes a series of different bacilli, of which some play an actual part in the necrotic processes of mucous membranes, and one, under certain not exactly understood conditions, gives rise to diph- theria. It is not, indeed, certain that this bacillus may not in attenuated condition be present )in healthy persons as a “ pseudodiphtheritic bacillus.” Energetic isolation and disinfection is the duty of the State in regard to scarlatina, and especially typhus. Although we cannot always prevent the spreading of scar- latina and measles, we ought to adopt measures against the “bacterial associations” found by us in these diseases, especially as possibly one of these bacteria may be causally related to the disease. Such bacteria are usually those which in attenuated form are found in the mouth and pharynx of children. I have found that the bronchitis of measles is usually due to streptococci, pneumococci, mucus-producing bacteria and staphylococci, whilst the pneumonia of measles and the pneumonia and nephritis of scarlatina are caused by streptococci or pneumococci; noma is caused by a proteus or by other bacteria, which I have lately described. Slucli more surely can septic puerperal processes be avoided by proper antisepsis, and as in the laboratory we are con- stantly finding that more diseases belong to the septic group, it will not be too much to demand that neglect, lead- ing to such complications, on the part of the doctor or other persons concerned in the treatment, should be punished. Just as a wound under improper careless treatment may give rise to suppuration, erysix>elas, gangrene, sepsis or
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