Tuberculosis Debate

Some 700 eminent bacteriologists crowded into the smallish assembly hall of the Paris Pasteur Institute last week to attend the first International.Microbio-logical Congress. Elderly scientists who had not seen each other since before the War, pushed beaming through the throng for handclasps and greetings. Great names from text books and professional journals nodded acknowledgment to introductions: "Professor [Jules] Bordet, director of the Brussels Pasteur Institute . . . Professor [Pierre Paul Emile] Roux, director of this Paris Pasteur Institute. . . . That is Dr. [Richard] Pfeiffer of Berlin . . . Dr. [Georgef] Fontes, professor of medicine at the University of Strasbourg. . . . How do you do, Dr. [William Hallock] Park. I hear you in New York approve Dr. Calmette's vaccine. Those deaths in Germany this summer did him no good. I am eager to hear his defense. . . ."

Professor Leon Charles Albert Calmette, 67, with Veterinary C. Guerin developed the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, commonly called BCG vaccine. It is prepared from living tuberculosis germs taken from diseased cows. These germs are cultured for many germ generations until they become non-virulent. The discoverers believe, and famed Dr. Park of Manhattan agrees with them, that they have proved that BCG vaccine, if fed to infants the first ten days of life, immunizes them against tuberculosis. Many bacteriologists denounce BCG. They say that its live germs cause rather than prevent tuberculosis (TIME, Dec. 9).

In such controversies, the U. S. scientific custom is to let the opponents present their facts in orderly manner, without heat. In Europe the custom is to argue the matter, vehemently if necessary. European scientists are usually dogmatic about their discoveries, U. S. scientists usually hesitant. U. S. representatives who had never heard a European scientific debate were startled by the violence of Professor Calmette's attackers and his defense.

Charge: BCG vaccine is vicious, because composed of living tuberculosis bacilli. It killed 57 infants at Lubeck, Germany, this summer.

Professor Calmette: But certain highly efficient accepted vaccines, including those for rabies and smallpox, utilize living microbes. The catastrophe at Lubeck occurred because virulent tuberculosis bacilli were mixed at Lubeck with the BCG vaccine received from Paris.

Charge: Vaccination through the digestive tract is impossible.

Professor Calmette: The unhappy incident at Lubeck proves that digestive inoculations do occur.

Charge: Animals inoculated with BCG react to the tuberculin skin test, indication of the presence of tuberculosis germs.

Professor Calmette: In such cases the tuberculin test is not positive. Such treated animals do not develop tuberculosis when inoculated with virulent bacilli.

Concluded Professor Calmette with emotion: "Let us generally adopt this vaccine! Let it be administered to all children ! The question is whether you would prefer to permit your child to be exposed to the virulent tuberculosis bacillus, which is inescapable, and let him take a chance against it unprotected, or whether you will administer a vaccine which is absolutely harmless and will in all probability make him immune from an attack of the virulent bacillus."

Cheers rang. Professor Calmette's European friends, many of them new-won, pressed forward to wring his hand. Although the Congress took no official action, the triumph of BCG seemed complete so far as Europe is concerned. In the U. S. doctors will doubtless base their final opinion on further demonstrations by Dr. Park et al.

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