What were the problems with early phage therapy?
The major problem was the poor understanding of the nature, heterogeneity and specificity of both phages and their bacterial hosts. Lack of proper diagnosis of the pathogen responsible for the infection and using the appropriate phage for the specific pathogen(s), led to the controversies referred to in section 8. D’Herelle himself avoided these pitfalls by isolating phages from naturally recovering patients and used these stocks to generate phages for the treatment of a large number of patients in the area of the epidemic. This strategy enabled him to use the appropriate phage even in the absence of proper diagnosis. Unfortunately, other practitioners of phage therapy did not use d’Herelle’s strategy. Furthermore, the lack of quality control led to the use of ineffective phage prepared by inappropriate methods, preservatives, and storage procedures. Other factors were the use of single phages in infections caused by more than one bacterial pathogen and the failure to neutralize gastri
