Serum Marmorek

The dilute serum of Marmorek

We are here concerned with his antituberculous, not with his antistreptococcic, serum. Marmorek does not believe in a tuberculous infection ; for him there is only an intoxication, and it is only antitoxins that he has tried to manufacture.

Without discussing here the advantages or disadvantages of this serum in the doses advised by the author, and without speaking of the accidents that the remedy has caused through its excessive strength in hypodermic injection (accidents that suggest its employment per rectum), I will begin at once with that side of the question which interests us ; the employment of the serum in homoeopathic doses, diluted to the 6th, 10th, or 30th centesimal attenuation, and administered by mouth.

Nebel was the first to advise the serum in medium homoeopathic doses.

For five years, Leon Vannier, upon the advice of Nebel, has employed this dilute serum, and he has been able to collect 530 observations grouped by him into two categories, the tuberculinics (those predisposed), and the tuberculous.

He places in connection with the group of tuherculinics certain conditions which, by a few modern authors, would be considered prodromes of tuberculosis, a classification which suggests the similarity bet"`een tuborculinics and the pre-tuberculous or good subjects for tuberculosis.

According to Vannier, tuberculinics present themselves under various aspects :

1st. the febrile (febrile without apparent reason);

2nd. persons subject to colds (persons who have cold after, and coryza after Coryza during the winter);

3rd. dental patients (persons predisposed to tuberculosis, said he, seem to make a rendezvous of the dentist's chair);

4th. constipated persons;

5th. cardiac patients (especially functional heart disease).

All these types of intoxicated persons are benefited by one or more doses of the diluted serum of Marmorek (L’ Homéopathie francaise, May, 1912).

Vannier passes then to the truly tuberculous. The serum of Marmorek, being essentially an antitoxic serum, suits the pulmonary tuberculous, who, notwithstanding the gravity or extent of their lesion, have poor resistance. Vannier has always observed a rapid improvement in the general condition, and a progressive increase in the weight of those under the influence of the diluted serum; but he has remarked that on the first, and especially on the second day following the absorbtion of the serum, there appeared pains in the apex of the lungs, an obstinate cough, and a state of unaccountable fatigue.

Then there is a return to normal conditions. This series of transient aggravations prepares the way for a progressive improvement. Everything continues as if there existed a truly negative period, similar to that caused by the vaccines, this negative period being followed by a positive condition much more prolonged, and in the latter the cure is completed.

This is also the opinion of Nebel. In caseous tuberculosis the serum has always brought a considerable improvement of the pains (clinical observations of Pott's disease and spina ventosa), and with this improvement the rapid diminution and even the complete disappearance of the violet discoloration so characteristic of tuberculous fistul.

When there is pus, the discharge for the first few days is more abundant and then gradually diminishes. Two cases of peritoneal tuberculosis have been success-fully treated with the serum, one by Vannier, the other by Mondain. Three cases of tuberculosis of the urinary tract were cured with the diluted serum (L’ Homéopathie francaise, April, 1912).

Tuberculous meningitis; one favourable case by Renaud-Badet.

Regarding a case of peritoneal tuberculosis, Mondain says :

"If the case is acute, or the organism too much depressed, we furnish to the cells in peril the prepared antibodies by administering a dilution of the antituberculous serum of Marmorek; later, when the general condition has sufficiently recovered so as to easily allow the patient to manufacture his own antibodies, we may, after studying his constitution, his temperament, and his symptoms, make a choice of the most suitable tuberculin, both to complete the cure and to effect immunization. Is not this method of isopathic protection the best ?

It is the one that nature herself employs in her spontaneous cures. We, faithful servants of nature, only imitate and assist her."