y
successful ovariotomist, and we can only conjecture that he builded
better than he knew, like many another man. A few years ago much was
expected from transfusion of blood, but gradually the conviction has
forced itself upon us that it is wellnigh useless, and indeed that, on
the whole, it is worse than useless. It has virtually been abandoned....
But experiments in transfusion have not been fruitless; they have
culminated in demonstrating the inestimable value of infusions of
'normal,' or 'physiological,' solutions of sodium chloride, and not only
of infusions, but also of peritoneal irrigation with such solutions.
Many a life has been saved by resorting to this measure, even in
apparently desperate cases."

Within about a decade of the close of the century, Robert Koch, whose
discoveries and ingenious studies in bacteriology had brought him
world-wide renown, announced that he had produced a derivative of the
tubercle bacillus, which he termed tuberculin, that he thought might
prove curative of tuberculous disease. It was to be injected beneath the
skin. If the subject was really tuberculous, he would "react" by
manifesting a certain degree of fever, and repeated injections would
bring about elimination of the tuberculous deposits and thus effect a
cure. The world was carried away with such an announcement coming from
such a man, and it was thoroughly believed that at last "the great white
plague," consumption, was to be conquered. Tuberculin did, indeed, cure
certain minor forms of tuberculous disease, such as the skin affection
known as lupus, but it soon became evident that it was almost impotent
in the treatment of pulmonary consumption. It has, however, served to
enable the veterinarian to make out the existence of tuberculous disease
in cattle at an early stage of its course, and it is probable that by
the slaughter of cattle thus found to be tuberculous much infection of
human beings has been prevented.

Tuberculin failed of its prime purpose, but it does seem to have marked
the initiative of a campaign against consumption which has already
proved of incalculable benefit, and bids fair to put that omnipresent
disease toward the foot of the list of causes of death. We have made
substantial advances in our knowledge of the disease, and we no longer
regard it as incurable. We have learned that it is communicable from one
person to another, but also that its communication can easily be
prevented, so that there