Miracles?

Cures for every malady under the sun are periodically reported in the public prints. When the stories are not actually made out of whole cloth or based on absurd misinformation, the announcements are usually premature or published by some enterprising reporter before the methods have been scientifically investigated or published in medical literature. A number of such remedies, recently reported, may or may not be in this class, but facts at hand are so meager that they can merely be listed, and must await scientific confirmation.

Tuberculosis. " Cures " for tuberculosis emanated from France, Germany, Spain inside of one month. Rafael Santos, 25-year-old Porto Rican medical student in Paris, constructed a set of lenses for introducing sun rays and ultraviolet rays into the lungs without injury to tissue, claiming it would kill all tuberculosis bacilli in less than half an hour.

Professor Cabrilovitch, Russian emigre working in Paris, has developed a serum called phagolysin based on Koch's tuberculin formula, which is administered by mouth and is described as setting up an effective resistance to the tubercle bacillus. It is being used in the open-air schools for tuberculous children.

A German gynecologist announced that a fluid prepared by Professor von Weniger, of Rio de Janeiro, tested in a Berlin sanatorium, has been found a specific for tuberculosis. The fluid contains thorium, uranium, manganese and various acids, and is said to dissolve the fatty covering of the tuberculosis bacilli. Colleagues of the sponsor are sceptical of his claims.

A Madrid surgeon, Torras Talarn, has developed a serum which saved a middle-aged man and a young girl in the last stages of tuberculosis. All the tuberculous patients in a Barcelona hospital will be given the treatment.

Scarlet Fever. The bacterium of scarlet fever has been isolated, it is claimed, after several years' experimentation by Drs. G. di Cristina and Giuseppe Caronia, of the Children's Hospitals in Palermo and Rome, respectively. It is reported that the organism is slightly ovoid in shape, less than one micron in length (1/25,400 of an inch), and is related to the diplococci. The injection of the bacteria in rabbits produced symptoms of scarlet fever, and a culture prepared from the blood and bone marrow of scarlet fever patients alleviated the disease when injected. Drs. di Christina and Caronia will lay their findings at once before the Roman Academy of Medicine.

Leprosy. A young doctor of Alexandria, Egypt, discovered a cure for leprosy an arsenic compound similar to anti-syphilitic drugs. French physicians have experimented with it for a year with good results. The only leprosy specific of promise now in use is the ethyl ester of chaulmoogra oil, extracted from a certain Asiatic tree, which has been used with fair success in treating lepers in China and the Philippines.

Dropsy. Hydropsy, the lymphatic disorder more commonly known as dropsy, has been cured in a Bordeaux (France) hospital by a 15 days' diet of onions, Prof. Paul Mongour told the French Academy of Medicine. The excess of fluid dried up in the process.

Anthrax. Dr. Napier, of Paris, cured himself of anthrax, he believes, by fasting for a fortnight. Fasting has been claimed as a cure for all sorts of infectious diseases, but the effects have seldom been substantiated, and other factors may be present.

Toadstool Poisoning. Another Frenchman, Dr. Dujarrie de la Riveire, developed a serum for toadstool poisoning by gradually immunizing a horse with injections of poisonous mushrooms. The serum thus produced neutralized poisoning successfully in mice and rabbits, but has not yet been perfected for human beings.

Smallpox. Dr. J. H. Gettinger, of the Bronx Hospital, New York, has devised a new method of smallpox vaccination which eliminates scratching the skin and resultant scar formation. Ordinary vaccine is used, but it is injected under the skin and the reaction is confined to the deeper layers, leaving the surface normal after three weeks.