Translation

The innocuousness of a treatment...is one of the preconditions for justifying a recommendation that it be introduced for therapy in humans. The second, even more important precondition, is evidence of the value foreseen by using it. This is the point that I want to raise here in discussing in detail my remedy for diphtheria…

When examining a curative serum, it has emerged that we can proceed in a much more precise and rational way than has hitherto been used by pharmacologists and clinicians evaluating drugs. When, for example, Resorcin, Kairin, Thallin, Antipyrin, Antifebrin and the myriad other chemicals were introduced in the treatment of diseases of man, one proceeded as follows.

The chemists prepared the drug artificially; the physiological chemists elicited particular effects on temperature regulation and neural function, etc, or a physician working with bacteriological methods found bacteriostatic activity in the drug; then clinicians tried it out in many diseases and patients; on the basis of their recommendations, industry became interested, and the new drug became sought after as a commercial commodity: from then on thousands of doctors found opportunities to make their own observations, and according to these, our treasure trove of medicaments has either been enriched – after the commission of the pharmacopeia had passed judgement that a worthwhile medicament had been discovered – or, more frequently, after a short and glamorous life, the new preparations fell into inglorious oblivion…

“This formerly-used approach carries too many dangers. In particular, the enthusiasm, I will not suggest – the disingenuousness of many observers, is a constant factor. A doctor or any other person occupied with the business of medicine applies a new or hitherto untried drug, which came into his hands by accident, in only one or a few cases of an