Intravenous Injections of Iodoform in Phthisis

Some years ago?in 1900?Dr. Robert Macguire of the Brompton Consumption Hospital described in a Harveian lecture certain experiments which he had made for the purpose of introducing germicides into the lungs through the venous system, with a view to the destruction of the tubercle bacillus. Previously various trials had been made of various agencies employed in various ways to this end. ''Consumptives worked hard with inhalers of sorts when awake, and thus slept in an atmosphere loaded with volatile antiseptics in the night. They swallowed bacterial poisons, they absorbed them by application to the skin, by injection under the skin, by deep injections into the lungs, by inflation of the rectum with gaseous germicides and by intratracheal injection of suitable antiseptic preparations all without benefit. Dr. Macguire selected formic aldehyde as his bactericide, and after some experiments on animals to