Medicine: Bacteriophage

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Felix d'Herelle thinks the bacteriophage is an ultramicroscopic living organism which is parasitic in bacteria and reproduces itself. Others think it may be a nonliving enzyme or catalyst which makes bacteria cells disintegrate, spread their disintegration to other cells. Theoretically it is present in the intestinal contents of all vertebrates, from man down. It is generally prepared by introducing a drop of sewage into a vigorously growing culture of bacteria.

Dr. D'Herelle, who got his first bacteriophage from dysentery convalescents, has cured dysentery by feeding sufferers with the phage. Bacteriophage has also been tried with varying success on typhoid, cholera, bubonic plague. But in contact with complex body fluids the phage does not act with the efficiency it displays in artificial laboratory media. A knowledge of why that is and how it can be overcome remains the Golden Fleece of many a bacteriologist (as it was of Sinclair Lewis' Martin Arrowsmit).

^{™ Balanced chemically and biologically by fish and plants in the water.}