Dr. Koch, however, with the usual caution of the true men of science, did not announce his tuberculin, or lymph, as a cure for pulmonary consumption.  He did not even declare that it was positively a remedy for the other forms of tuberculosis, but did announce his cure of cases of lupus by the agent which he had prepared.  The world, after its manner, leaped at conclusions, and the newspapers of two continents, in their usual office of disseminating ignorance, trumpeted Koch’s discovery as the end of tubercular consumption.

In January of 1891, Dr. Koch published to the world the composition of his remedy.  It consists of a glycerine extract prepared by the cultivation of tubercle bacilli.  The lymph contains, as it were, the poisonous matter resulting from the life and activity of the tubercle bacterium.  The fluid is used by hypodermic injection, and when so administered produces both a general and local reaction.  The system is powerfully affected.  A sense of weariness comes on.  The breathing is labored.  Nausea ensues; and a fever supervenes which lasts for twelve or fifteen hours.  It is now known that the action of the remedy is not directly against the tubercle bacilli, but rather against the affected tissue in which they exist.  This tissue is destroyed and thrown off by the agency of the lymph; being destroyed, it is eliminated and cast out, carrying with it the bacteria on which the disease depends.

The results which have followed the administration of Koch’s lymph for consumption of the lungs have not met the expectation of the public; but something has been accomplished.  Ignorant enthusiasm has meanwhile subsided, and scientific men in both Europe and America are pressing the inquiry in a way which promises in due time the happiest results.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN SURGERY.

It will not do to disparage the work of the ancients.  The old world, long since fallen below the horizon of the past, had races of men and individuals who might well be compared with the greatest of to-day.  In a general way, the ancients were great as thinkers and weak as scientists.  They were great in the fine arts and weak in the practical arts.  This is true of the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, even of the Aztecs and the Peruvians.

The art work of these old peoples, whether in sculpture, painting or poetry, surpassed, if it did not eclipse, corresponding periods of modern times.  In some of the practical arts the old races were proficient.  In architecture, which combines the aesthetic and practical elements, the man of antiquity was at least the equal of the man of the present.  In one particular art—­a sort of humanitarian profession based on natural science and directed to the preservation of life—­the ancients had a measure of proficiency.  This art was surgery.  The surgeon was even from the beginning, and he will no doubt be even to the end.