Food versus bacilli in consumption : (Opus 286) An open letter / from Ephraim Cutter ... to his son, John Ashburton Cutter, with an answer.

  • Cutter, Ephraim, 1854-1926
Date:
1888
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Food versus bacilli in consumption : (Opus 286) An open letter / from Ephraim Cutter ... to his son, John Ashburton Cutter, with an answer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    but when I consider that you have been working in micro¬ scopy since 1850, and the practice of medicine since 1856; that you have positively cured cases of consumption, some of whom are alive to-day, after fifteen or twenty years’ lapse since leaving your hands, and that these same food plans have helped me with cases, called by my honored and hon¬ orable teachers of the Faculty of my medical Alma Mater, in¬ curable, I do not wonder that you are willing and anxious to inform me further as to food vs. bacilli in consumption. When I was a boy, preparing for college, you gave up a large country practice, moved to Cambridge, and en¬ tered into the work of microphotography with great zeal. There was no money in it—instead, money out. But, if it is any satisfaction to you, Twill say, that in all my medical studies, I have not come across any thing as to the etiology, diagnosis, and a means of watching a case carefully in tho treatment of phthisis, which has been of so much value to me as the results of your efforts in microphotography. The plates are unique, elegant, clear, and tell their own story. I can only hope that they may be published as fully as Dr. Koch’s researches have been. This is not saying that the plates in Dr. Salisbury’s monu¬ mental work, “The Relation of Alimentation and Disease,” are not of value. Instead, they are of the greatest benefit. The only difference between his original work and your corroborative is, that he, a superb artist, made representa¬ tions of morphology by the hand, and yours were made with instruments. Again, as to conventionality, my associates wonder that I do not stain bacilli, etc. You and Dr. Salisbury say that there is no time to be used in staining bacilli, but to look for the forms without using any reagents. In your clinical morphologies after Salisbury, I find in the partial syllabic list of the sputum, about 120 forms indicated; as some of the units of the number are only classifications of many forms, the total would run up in the hundreds, and I am compelled to take no time for staining, but see all I can, aided by a good Tolies’ microscope. I am confronted by some who say that you are a “ Salis-
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