KOCH IN THE HIGH ALPS.
TO the healthy English gentleman who lives at home at ease, the question whether Dr. Koch's remedy is a boon and a blessing to men, or a dangerous poison, possesses at best little more than an academic interest. It was a good subject to talk about, like the Behring Sea ques- tion, or the railway strike in Scotland, and as no one knew anything in particular about it, there was plenty of oppor- tunity for talking at large, and gratifying the natural British propensity to prosiness. This sort of thing cannot go on for long ; and when in a short time since it became impossible to open a newspaper without coming upon some fresh particulars about Dr. Koch, his age and his appearance, the place where he was born, the colour of his beard or the size of spectacles he wears, the British public voted the remedy a bore, and the inventor himself in all probability a quack. They could find something else to talk about.
With us it is different. In our dreary snowy waste up here among the hills, to which we are all supposed to have been driven by reasons more or less connected with the class of diseases which Dr. Koch professes to cure, there is a very real, living interest in all the discussions of the new remedy. We do not consider Dr. Koch a bore ; we ask each other questions about his age and the place of his birth ; we buy his portrait— yes, and frame it 1—we are interested about the colour of his beard ; and our optician has laid in a new stock of spectacles similar to those worn by the great discoverer, the arch-quack, the benefactor or enemy of mankind, whichever you are pleased to consider him. For there are false brethren even among us, chiefly persons professing to be free from all physical defect or disease—though the sanity of healthy people who come to St. Johann when they might have gone somewhere else may reasonably be doubted—who scoff at the weaker vessels for grasping at a possible cure with- out waiting to be quite sure whether it is a-thoroughly sound one. There is in this view something of the proverbial wisdom which discourages drowning men from grasping at straws ; it is so much better to wait till the Humane Society's apparatus can be got ready. Then there have always been kind-hearted people who said that the remedy was procured by vivisection, strong-minded admirers of science who said that Professor Virchow had not expressed his ap- proval, and patriotic persons of the Jingo type who said it was a 'German remedy and not to be trusted,—for the Germans were rather in the way of speaking ill of English physicians a year or two ago. But the enthusiasm of St. Johann was not abated.
It is now some three months since an enterprising German doctor made the first dash upon Berlin, and returned with a supply of the precious remedy to St. Johann. With difficulty an excited crowd was prevented from carrying him from the station on their shoulders. Then another and another followed suit, till one fine morning St. Johann woke up to find itself practically doctorlesa, and, it must be admitted, did not feel appreciably the worse. The return of the missing physicians was, however, eagerly expected, and the pulse of St. Johann went down when they came back, decidedly sobered in their enthusiasm. It appeared that every patient was not to be cured of all human ills straight off. There were some eases, indeed a good many, where the remedy would be inap- plicable; but for the majority of the patients, it was worth trying. Soon the process of inoculation was commenced on a large and rapidly increasing scale. The enthusiasm of St. Johann was easily rekindled, and the name and praises of Koch were again in everybody's month ; if there had been a Company to work the remedy, its shares would have gone up like a sky-rocket. No other subject of conversation could exist for five minutes, for what upon earth or above or beneath it could be so interesting as the intelligence that Smith had "been begun" yesterday, that the amount of reaction in Mrs. Brown's case was not satisfactory, or that Robinson had got up to ten milligrammes already ? Not that the enthusiasm was confined to the English patients by any means ; with German,. Dutch, Or Swiss, it was all the same. Even the phlegmatic in- habitants of the valley, who have seen generations of patients come and go—who, if they cared one way or other, might be expected to resent a discovery which would cure and conse- quently take away the visitors they live upon—even they felt it their duty to hang out flags upon Dr. Koch's birthday Our bookseller published a lament of "The Last Bacillus," in which .the unhappy microbe deplores the loneliness of his existence upon earth now that all his brethren and sisters have fallen victims to the ruthless Koch ; and our chemist,, not to be outdone, suspended in his window a defies of diagrams representing the operation of the remedy. In the first of these we saw the original condition of the disease, when each microbe was quietly going about his business in a manner indicating peaceful and contented industry. The date of the second was three days after the first injection ; there was evidently confusion in the camp of the bacilli, who were wandering vaguely about and entangling themselves together somewhat after the manner of the followers of Mr. Parnell. No. 3 represented the same scene fourteen days later, when the death-dealing remedy had done its work, and nothing remained but the mangled carcasses of the slain.
But the enthusiasm was greatest of all among the German contingent, who muster in large numbers at St. Johann. Their rejoicing is not alone that of the human racein general, that a deliverer has arisen for mankind, but it is also a national triumph ; it is from their native Hartz mountains that the conqueror has come forth, a German of the Germans,. to smite the bacilli in their thousands, even as Shamgar smote the Philistines of old. As their enthusiasm is, so is their confidence in and obedience to the precepts of the sags. Truly it was a noble and a touching sight at the Curhaus concert to see some fifty members of that simple and duty-loving race draw each from his pocket at the stroke of nine an implement resembling in size and shape a large pencil-case, and insert the same in his mouth, after the manner of a stopper in a bottle. A ‘silence of awe and wonder fell upon the audience ; could it be a simultaneous attempt at suicide, or was it some mysterious act of worship P However,. we soon began to realise the probability that they were merely taking their temperature, and all fears were quieted when, some twenty minutes later, the fifty stoppers were simul- taneously withdrawn amidst the cheers of the bystanders. Still more touching and impressive was another scene of which I myself was witness—there was no indiscretion, for it was in the open street—when two tender young Teutons. of opposite sexes rushed into each other's embrace, and in the sweet, soft accents of mutual love, murmured into each other's ears the soul-absorbing question, "Haben Sic gute Reaktion P"
Such are the simple joys and emotions excited by Dr.. Koch's discovery among those who are secluded from the world at large in a lofty and narrow valley, somewhat resembling a box thickly lined with snow. "But what good came of it at last ?" some people will ask, after the manner of that inquisitive little bore who would have had his ears soundly boxed if old Caspar had had a proper idea of his parental duties. We can only reply, with Caspar, that we cannot tell, but, to all appearance, 'tis a famous remedy. There has not yet been sufficient time to decide what will be the result of the treatment in most eases, and it is impossible, for a layman especially, to judge of the degree of progress which patients are taaking who only come casually under his observation. The leading physician. raises his hands in admiration, and declares that he has a number of cases in which this remedy is employed where the result is "joust lofely I" and, indeed, the greater number of patients of whom we hear seem to be doing fairly well. The treatment appears -to be very disagreeable, fever and nausea inocula-
tion, the usual characteristics of the reaction after though some persons seem to be little affected by it, and
yet derive profit therefrom. Some very favourable cases. come to our knowledge. Let us take one instance. A young man, while studying fot the profession be had chosen,, fell ill with disease of the lungs, and was ordered to go Orb a long sea-voyage, by which he benefited considerably. The necessary delay, however, had barred the door of his profes- sion to him ; and when a new opening offered, a second break- down made this also impossible. Various remedies had since been tried, but with little avail ; one lung was seriously affected almost throughout, and the other showed some signs of injury. His latest return to England had been attended with serious consequences, and his best prospect seemed to be. that some years of dreary existence among these high places, with no -change except from one hotel to another, would bring about a sufficient improvement for him to try at least the possibility of living at home. To this patient, who was among the first inoculated, it was recently announced that in all probability he would return home this spring, cured. I have not yet heard of so striking a ease, but I believe that there are many as favourable.
There are, however, also many which show a different result. Another ease is that also of a young man, of great promise, and rising in his profession, who has been one among the many martyrs to that insidious influenza which is so difficult to shake off altogether. His case is of short standing, but its progress had at first been rapid. The air of St. Johann, however, had wrought wonders, and the improvement had been almost as rapid as the disease. Having a considerable knowledge of such subjects, this gentleman took a great interest in the new discovery, and was convinced that it was at least worth trying. The effect, however, in his case was the opposite of that pro- -dreced in the case already referred to. We should not perhaps say from the day of his inoculation, but certainly from the date of the injection of a certain larger dose, the patient began to lose ground, and the former improvement gradually to dis- appear. It would he very wrong, we are told, to persevere with -the treatment here ; in fact, in this case, Dr. Koeh's remedy is nothing less than poison.
There is, therefore, direct evidence of facts both for and .against the remedy. Of course there may have been special 'circumstances in either of the cases mentioned which made them peculiarly suited or unsuited for the treatment. Dr. Koch never professed to have discovered a miraculous specific which would always be equally successful; and it may pro- bably be found that his discovery, in its present condition at least, may be applicable only to a much smaller proportion of cases than was hoped at first. But, at any rate, good has already been done in the great majc.Aty of cases that we hear of here, though the enemies of the treatment say 'that we must wait and see if the good will last. Some allowance must be made for the natural tendency to believe a man guilty till he is proved to be innocent ; but, liven in spite of this, I think that if a plZbiseite was taken among us, a strong majority would express their confidence in the new remedy.
St. Johann, February 7th.
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