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BCG AT THE PARIS ACADEMY OF MEDICINE
308 are fused with g. of subnitrate of bismuth in a silver or nickel crucible by agitating the mixture; the mass then assumes a milky appearance. Care must be taken that the temperature of the hydrate during fusion is not too high ; it should not be greater than the point of fusion, otherwise the mass will become reddish, yellow, or brown owing to the formation of various oxides of bismuth. The liquid mass is then poured out on a cold and dry surface, where it immediately solidifies. It is powdered ,quickly-for it is very hygroscopic-and kept in a closed receptacle. Whereas in Nylander’s test the heat developed by the dissolving of the sodium hydrate in water is not utilised in any way, with the new reagent the heat is not lost but is only developed at the moment when it comes in contact with the urine. The test is performed by placing about 300-400 mg. (grs. 5 or 6, an excess being immaterial) on a microscope slide or watch glass, and adding one drop of urine. In the presence of glucose blacking takes place immediately; in its absence the powder remains white. Leti claims that this reagent saves both time and trouble since it enables anyone to ascertain the presence of sugar in the urine, although only in a qualitative sense.
BEIT
BEQUESTS
AND
FELLOWSHIPS.
Beit,
who died on Dec. 7th of last year, Sir Otto leaves a fortune provisionally estimated at over JE3,600,000. He has given his executors the sum of 290,000 to distribute to public and charitable bodies, and the following are among the beneficiaries : King Edward’s Hospital Fund, ;C50,OOO; The Royal Society, Guy’s Hospital, the London Hospital, and St. George’s Hospital, 10,000 each ; the London Homoeopathic Hospital and the Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge, E5000 each, the Children’s Sanatorium for the Treatment of Phthisis, Holt, Norfolk, and the Seaford Convalescent Home ;E2500 each. It is announced in our advertisement columns that Sir Alfred Beit has been appointed a trustee for the Beit memorial fellowships for medical research in place of his father. Prof. T. R. Elliott has been appointed honorary secretary in place of Sir James Kingston Fowler, who has resigned, but remains a trustee. Sir John Rose Bradford has become a trustee in place of the Earl of Clarendon ; Prof. J. C. G. Ledingham has joined the advisory board, and Sir Charles Martin, a member of this board since the foundation of the trust, has resigned on taking up work in Australia. ____
BCG AT THE PARIS ACADEMY OF MEDICINE THE scientific calm of the Académie de Médecine was broken on Jan. 20th by Dr. Joseph Lignieres,
evidence was steadily coming in to show that the B C G strain is not definitely fixed. He described the results of Dreyer and Vollum, published in our own columns,’ as a confirmation of those of Petroff, and went on to speak of a long series of cultures, made by himself in 1929-30, in which, when egg was added to the medium, some of the cultures regained the property of producing progressive lesions in the guinea-pig. It was, however, a curious fact that the cultures which produced these lesions when cultivated anew on the same medium did not become more virulent ; sometimes, indeed, the guinea-pigs which received them recovered from their lesions as after the non-virulent B C G. Turning to the Lubeck catastrophe, he remarked that Calmette, and the German investigators after him, were perfectly right in affirming that the classical B C G vaccine had nothing to do with it. The suggestion that non-virulent B C G had been mixed with a subvirulent human strain was, he said, not impossible, however unacceptable to laboratory workers ; but he went on to make the remarkable statement that certain information collected at the Lubeck laboratory would suggest that the vaccine had been cultured at Lubeck on an eggcontaining medium-which, if confirmed, would logically explain the tragedy. It would seem, he said, that Prof. Bruno Lange in discarding the possibility of spontaneous recovery of virulence was still impressed with the possibility of recovery of virulence from other causes. It was in this direction, said Prof. Lignieres, that his own work was leading. Whatever the reason, the German Government continued to maintain its prohibition of B C G, and the same was true of Chile. Finally he came to his trump card-namely, the discovery by Dr. E. Hormaeche, professor of bacteriology at Montevideo, in collaboration with J. E. Mackinnon, of a means of conferring virulence at will on the classical B C G. In a paper published in the annals of the Faculty of Medicine Hormaeche had shown that in guineapigs previously inoculated with a streptococcus the B C G vaccine produced tuberculous lesions which after the third passage were progressive and tended to generalise. Once isolated this virulent B C G its preserved pathogenic qualities. Immediately he heard of this work Prof. Lignieres obtained Hormaeche’s streptococcus and permission to repeat his experiments, which his own results corroborated as far as they went. While he did not think that all types of streptococcus would augment the virulence of B C G, Hormaeche’s observation would explain the occurrence of lesions in certain subjects after vaccination with B C G. This completed the long chain of evidence which justified him in counselling prudence and in reserving the Calmette vaccination for infants living in a tuberculous environment. The importance of the Calmette-Guerin discovery was patent, but before the vaccine became universal it would have to be rendered absolutely inoffensive. Prof. Leon Bernard having replied with some asperity that no congress ever took a vote on a scientific discovery, that Prof. Lignieres himself had had a share in the employment of B C G to immunise cattle, and that the veterinary commission organised in Paris by the League of Nations had recognised the absolute innocuity of B C G, Prof. Lignieres refused to surrender any part of his strategic position.
professor of bacteriology in the Veterinary Faculty at Buenos Aires, when he made a comprehensive attack upon the reputation of the Calmette vaccine. Judging by contemporary lay and medical comment in Paris it might be thought, he said, that B C G had received a final blessing throughout the entire world. The truth, however, was otherwise, and at no congress had any vote on the merits of the vaccine been taken-an act of prudence on the part of its sponsors. In particular he regarded as improper Calmette’s employment of the total figures of infantile mortality ; the report from Roumania of a fall in infant mortality from 25 to 2-3 per cent. was inadmissible. At the WE regret to announce the death on Monday last International Congress of Paediatrics in Buenos Aires last year the proposal to extend B C G vaccination of Mr. A. G. R. Foulerton which occurred at his Morpeth-terrace, S.W., after a short illness. to all new-born children did not gain a single voice. After this preface Prof. Lignieres remarked that 1 THE LANCET, Jan. 3rd, p. 9.
residence,
BEIT
BEQUESTS
AND
FELLOWSHIPS.
Beit,
who died on Dec. 7th of last year, Sir Otto leaves a fortune provisionally estimated at over JE3,600,000. He has given his executors the sum of 290,000 to distribute to public and charitable bodies, and the following are among the beneficiaries : King Edward’s Hospital Fund, ;C50,OOO; The Royal Society, Guy’s Hospital, the London Hospital, and St. George’s Hospital, 10,000 each ; the London Homoeopathic Hospital and the Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge, E5000 each, the Children’s Sanatorium for the Treatment of Phthisis, Holt, Norfolk, and the Seaford Convalescent Home ;E2500 each. It is announced in our advertisement columns that Sir Alfred Beit has been appointed a trustee for the Beit memorial fellowships for medical research in place of his father. Prof. T. R. Elliott has been appointed honorary secretary in place of Sir James Kingston Fowler, who has resigned, but remains a trustee. Sir John Rose Bradford has become a trustee in place of the Earl of Clarendon ; Prof. J. C. G. Ledingham has joined the advisory board, and Sir Charles Martin, a member of this board since the foundation of the trust, has resigned on taking up work in Australia. ____
BCG AT THE PARIS ACADEMY OF MEDICINE THE scientific calm of the Académie de Médecine was broken on Jan. 20th by Dr. Joseph Lignieres,
evidence was steadily coming in to show that the B C G strain is not definitely fixed. He described the results of Dreyer and Vollum, published in our own columns,’ as a confirmation of those of Petroff, and went on to speak of a long series of cultures, made by himself in 1929-30, in which, when egg was added to the medium, some of the cultures regained the property of producing progressive lesions in the guinea-pig. It was, however, a curious fact that the cultures which produced these lesions when cultivated anew on the same medium did not become more virulent ; sometimes, indeed, the guinea-pigs which received them recovered from their lesions as after the non-virulent B C G. Turning to the Lubeck catastrophe, he remarked that Calmette, and the German investigators after him, were perfectly right in affirming that the classical B C G vaccine had nothing to do with it. The suggestion that non-virulent B C G had been mixed with a subvirulent human strain was, he said, not impossible, however unacceptable to laboratory workers ; but he went on to make the remarkable statement that certain information collected at the Lubeck laboratory would suggest that the vaccine had been cultured at Lubeck on an eggcontaining medium-which, if confirmed, would logically explain the tragedy. It would seem, he said, that Prof. Bruno Lange in discarding the possibility of spontaneous recovery of virulence was still impressed with the possibility of recovery of virulence from other causes. It was in this direction, said Prof. Lignieres, that his own work was leading. Whatever the reason, the German Government continued to maintain its prohibition of B C G, and the same was true of Chile. Finally he came to his trump card-namely, the discovery by Dr. E. Hormaeche, professor of bacteriology at Montevideo, in collaboration with J. E. Mackinnon, of a means of conferring virulence at will on the classical B C G. In a paper published in the annals of the Faculty of Medicine Hormaeche had shown that in guineapigs previously inoculated with a streptococcus the B C G vaccine produced tuberculous lesions which after the third passage were progressive and tended to generalise. Once isolated this virulent B C G its preserved pathogenic qualities. Immediately he heard of this work Prof. Lignieres obtained Hormaeche’s streptococcus and permission to repeat his experiments, which his own results corroborated as far as they went. While he did not think that all types of streptococcus would augment the virulence of B C G, Hormaeche’s observation would explain the occurrence of lesions in certain subjects after vaccination with B C G. This completed the long chain of evidence which justified him in counselling prudence and in reserving the Calmette vaccination for infants living in a tuberculous environment. The importance of the Calmette-Guerin discovery was patent, but before the vaccine became universal it would have to be rendered absolutely inoffensive. Prof. Leon Bernard having replied with some asperity that no congress ever took a vote on a scientific discovery, that Prof. Lignieres himself had had a share in the employment of B C G to immunise cattle, and that the veterinary commission organised in Paris by the League of Nations had recognised the absolute innocuity of B C G, Prof. Lignieres refused to surrender any part of his strategic position.
professor of bacteriology in the Veterinary Faculty at Buenos Aires, when he made a comprehensive attack upon the reputation of the Calmette vaccine. Judging by contemporary lay and medical comment in Paris it might be thought, he said, that B C G had received a final blessing throughout the entire world. The truth, however, was otherwise, and at no congress had any vote on the merits of the vaccine been taken-an act of prudence on the part of its sponsors. In particular he regarded as improper Calmette’s employment of the total figures of infantile mortality ; the report from Roumania of a fall in infant mortality from 25 to 2-3 per cent. was inadmissible. At the WE regret to announce the death on Monday last International Congress of Paediatrics in Buenos Aires last year the proposal to extend B C G vaccination of Mr. A. G. R. Foulerton which occurred at his Morpeth-terrace, S.W., after a short illness. to all new-born children did not gain a single voice. After this preface Prof. Lignieres remarked that 1 THE LANCET, Jan. 3rd, p. 9.
residence,