page194

Contents Page

page196

 

                                                        GENERAL DIRECTIONS                                              195

 

they deemed suitable, and with one exception none of them ever asked a scientific opinion from me as to their procedure. More than once the one firm with whom, through their European manager, I was long in constant communication, declined to put out still stronger injections, until some physician should ask for them. That is to say, like the writer, they preferred to place the responsibility upon the shoulders of the physicians in charge. When, therefore, for example, Dr. P. Tetens Hald,* referring to one of the Fairchild preparations, says, “This solution is of the same strength as the special injection’ recommended by Beard,” this recommendation” must be understood as given because the high reputation of the firm of Fairchild Brothers and Foster was a guarantee that all their preparations were reliable and scientifically prepared, and not because, in my scientific opinion, they were at that time the best possible preparations ideally for use in either absolute or relative strengths. I knew of no better ones on the market—indeed, for a very long time, of none as good; and, in addition to other advantages, they had for my purposes the very great recommenda­tion that through agents they could be obtained in almost every part of the world, at the Cape, in Australia, India, Italy, Spain, etc. Thus, no single correspondent had to be told that reliable injections of trypsin and of amylopsin were out of his reach. Moreover, these injections had active ferment powers in whatever part of the world they happened to be purchased, a thing which cannot be said of certain other injections.

The time has now arrived when it is the writer’s duty

* Hald, P. Tetens: “Comparative Researches on the Tryptic Strengths of Different Trypsin Preparations, and on their Action on the Human Body,” in the Lancet (November 16, 1907, pp. 1371-1375).

page194

Contents Page

page196