File:Glimpses of medical Europe (1908) (14765722111).jpg

Identifier: glimpsesofmedica00thom (find matches)
Title: Glimpses of medical Europe
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Thompson, Ralph L. (Ralph Leroy), 1872-
Subjects: Medicine Medicine Education, Medical Travel
Publisher: Philadelphia, London, J.B. Lippincott company
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons

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o fanatic seekinga life elixir. When he kept at his side in thelaboratory a bowl of yoghurt, from which hedrank occasionally, he had a reason for it.In this sour milk were bacteria which he con-sidered would do things to the flora of hisgastro-intestinal tract that were trying tohand his arteries a lemon. And we use theterm lemon advisedly, for the body maybe compared to that much-maligned fruit,which consists of pulp and juice. When weare young we are full of juice. Old age isthe replacement of juice by fiber. Just as afruit goes woody, so in old age the paren-chyma of the liver, kidneys, and other organsis replaced by fibrous stroma. We know thatthe yeast germs in wines, beer, and otherliquors help this process along. Why not, 176 PARIS says Metchnikoff *combat these organismsby introducing bacteria of an opposite sort?However, Metchnikoff merely amuses him-self with these things. While all this old-agetalk and craziness of the good old manwas circulating, Metchnikoff had been busy-
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Metciixikdff ing himself with studies in ape inoculationwith syphilitic virus, and found that thechimpanzee was susceptible to this diseaseand, moreover, that inoculations could becarried from animal to animal of the samespecies, but with decrease of virulence. So thatan ape could be rendered immune to syphilis. 12 177 MEDICAL EUROPE Theoretically this gives us, then, a methodof vaccination against syphilis akin to thePasteur method of treating rabies, and Metch-nikoff suggests that all prostitutes step up andprotect themselves from the danger of thisdisease, which is an almost certain accom-paniment of their trade. It was too bad that Metchnikoff did notdiscover the spirochetce pallida. He had thechance, considering the work he was doing atthe time that Schaudin published his famousarticle. It should have been Metchnikoff whogave the cause of syphilis to the world. Whata great and fitting climax to the life work ofthis great man that would have been! I left Metchnikoff, after seeing

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