CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION AND BACTERICIDAL ACTION.

295 rheumatism had been an indication for tonsillectomy. to the British Dye-Stuffs Corporation ; Dr. Renshaw, There were also five cases in which the operation had a physician-bacteriologist, able to judge of the staining been performed for tonsillitis with foetor oris, and only and antiseptic action exerted on micro-organisms by in one case did this symptom persist. An instructive the dyes that his chemical colleague provided. It was discovery made on re-examination of 72 patients was by such team-work that real advances in our knowthat the proportion of successes was greatest in the ledge were likely to be obtained. Before the war it cases in which a clean sweep of all the tonsillar struchad been suggested, especially by J. W. Churchman tures had been made. The question is often asked : in America, that some relation would probably be May tonsillectomy prove actually injurious as well found between the power of a given dye to stain a as failing to relieve the symptoms for which it is special bacterium or protozoon on the one hand and undertaken ? Unfortunately, the answer cannot be its power to inhibit their growth or kill them, and emphatically in the negative. In one of Norsk’s cases during the war much use had been made of aniline tonsillectomy stirred a latent infection into activity, dyes as antiseptics, such as acriflavine, malachite the operation being followed by a severe septic green, brilliant green, and rosaniline. The lecturers disease involving the joints and heart and crippling the were able to give some information on these points, patient for several years. Some 40 of Norsk’s patients and an abstract of that part of the lecture which dealt wrote complaining of symptoms suggestive of pharyng- with selective action on micro-organisms appears on itis ; it is conceivable that this condition may have p. 314 of the present issue. existed before the operation, having been masked by the more troublesome symptoms associated with the inflammation of the tonsils. It is certainly significant ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE: THE POSITION OF ASSOCIATES. that atrophic pharyngitis was not found in any of the 72 re-examined patients. Three wrote that their WE learn, and we own it is with some surprise, capacity for singing had been impaired, and Dr. that the new class of Associates in the Royal Society Norsk is evidently well advised in not of Medicine has attracted as yet small support. tonsillectomy for professional singers if the operation Associates are qualified men or women, British or can possibly be avoided. otherwise, who within five years of their first professional qualification apply to the Council for election CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION AND BACTERICIDAL as non-corporate Associates of the Society. They cannot vote or take any part in the management of the ACTION. Society, but, if elected by the Council, they are entitled THE recent Mann Lecture at the Royal Society of to all the ordinary privileges of Fellows, with the Arts was devoted to a popular exposition on the exception that they do not receive the Proceedings Relation between Chemical Constitution and Anti- gratis, and their use of the library is limited. They septic Action in the Coal Tar Dyes, by Mr. T. H. pay no admission fee but only the annual subscription Fairbrother, M.Sc., and Dr. Arnold Renshaw, both of of 3 guineas, payable on Oct. 1st of each year, and Manchester, who have devoted much time and after having paid three annual subscriptions an attention to the subject. Sir Humphry Rolleston, who Associate, if elected to the Fellowship, is exempt from presided, pointed out the important nature of the paying the admission fee. Associateship terminates work both from a national and economic aspect, and automatically on Sept. 30th following the expiration The of five years from the date of the Associate’s first also from its scientific and medical interest. aniline dyes originally discovered by Sir William Perkin professional qualification. in 1856 had before the war passed almost entirely Special forms of application can be obtained from into the hands of chemical manufacturers in Germany, the Secretary of the Society, and we commend the and it is probable that this was largely due to the scheme to the notice of our readers, as an excellent comparatively slight financial encouragement given to way of keeping in touch with modern developments of chemists working on these lines in this country, which medicine. contrasted with the wise action of Germany in this TREATMENT OF RECTAL PROLAPSE IN matter. Our overwhelming handicap in this respect became obvious early in the war, and it might be hoped CHILDREN. that in spite of difficulties this would be permanently THE vast majority of cases of prolapse of the remedied by organisations in this country. Sir rectum in children can be cured without resort to on remark Rolleston went to how fascinating Humphry but those who have had extensive from a chemical point of view had become the problem surgical measures, that in a few children conservarecognise experience of difference in action due to alteration in structure of is unsatisfactory; even when it is a synthetic body ; the amount of skilled labour tive treatment treatment may have to be devoted to this problem was well shown by the names eventually successful the the health " " " general suffering from the prolonged, 606 and " 914 applied to preparations eventually effects of the rectal catarrh set up and perpetuated be after number of trials to the indicated, found, have been made suitable by Ehrlich in his epoch-making research on by the prolapse. Various suggestions the chemotherapy of syphilis. In the " seventies " for the relief of such cases. Prof. Rudolf Eden, of the work of Pasteur and Koch had established the Freiburg,l reports 10 cases successfully treated with of ", humanol," a preparation of oil derived specificity of disease-nainely, that an infectious injections 2 disease was due to one kind of germ and to that alone ; from human fat,.2 He injects 30-80 c.cm. of the oil in such a way that it forms a submucosal wall around later it became known that after each infectious disease the anal canal, extending upwards for a distance of specific antibodies peculiar to the disease and prevent- 3-4 cm.-i.e., above the sphincters-having previously ing its recurrence appeared in the patient’s blood. reduced the prolapse. He states that the immediate The conception of the production of specific drugs which should, when introduced into the body of a effect is mechanical owing to the presence of the oil, but that from the day following the injection the patient, kill the parasite (parasitotropic) and not hurt the organs (or be organotropic) of the individual was sphincter is found to be contracted, even in those where it had been markedly relaxed before the due to Ehrlich. Before the war Sir Almroth Wright and others, working on the effect of " optochin " on operation. Absorption of the oil takes place slowly, and when complete the mucosa remains firmly fixed pneumococcic infections, had attacked the same to the underlying tissues, which themselves show no problem, insisting that the bactericidal drug should be to prolapse. This effect is probably due to monotropic or have a selective affinity for one germ tendency a mild inflammation in the tissues with subsequent recent This was not the same the view as only. quite of oedema for the that groups of allied mono-organisms were similarly cicatricial formation, the presence the inflammatory nature of first two indicating days acted upon by the same chemical agent. Sir Humphry The injection is carried out under Rolleston spoke of the happy combination of two the reaction. workers : Mr. Fairbrother being a chemist with a 1 Münch. med. Woch., Jan. 5th, 1923. 2 Deut. med. Woch., 1920, No. 39. brilliant record of work in the war, and now attached I

recommending

____

cases