THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VACCINE THERAPY

As a justification for any method of treatment, especially if the method is novel and all-inclusive in the field of proposed application, it is essential that those who apply the method should be convinced that it is based on adequate experience. This basis may be that established by the statistical method of clinical medicine, or it may be that of definite experimentation leading to logical clinical application. By the statistical method of clinical medicine is meant the study by many physicians of the efficacy of a certain form of treatment as applied to a great number of persons suffering from the same disease. Though we describe treatment so based as empiric in method, such description does not necessarily minimize the importance of the method of treatment or of study on which it is based. Too many remedial agents, though introduced at first in curious and diverse ways, have stood the