“Medicine when injected directly into the veins often works more swiftly and successfully than medicine given through the stomach.” So said Dr. W. Forest Dutton, Medical Director of the hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania, in reporting (from Philadelphia) the satisfactory treatment of several cases by a new method. The approach to the enemy bacillus through the bloodstream is called intravenous therapy. Formerly, only five drugs could be so administered, but today the number has been extended to 140, and the treatment is applicable to almost as many diseases. Especially in cases of pneumonia and diphtheria, the rapid passage of the medicine through the body in intravenous therapy gives it an advantage over the much slower processes of the stomach. The method, however, is one for highly expert use.
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