56 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



duction and use of antitoxin in 1895, diphtheria could truthfully be 

 called one of the greatest scourges of childhood. The death rate began 

 to fall all over the civilized world with its increasing employment. 



The following table, quoted from Keen, gives the official reports of 

 the mortality from diphtheria for every 100,000 inhabitants in certain 

 American and European cities before the use of antitoxin and after its 

 employment had become general: 



Table op Moetality from Diphtheria 



Per 100,000 Inhabitants 

 1894 1905 



New York (Manhattan) 158 38 



Philadelphia 128 32 



Baltimore 50 20 



Boston 180 22 



Brooklyn 173 43 



Pittsburgh 64 26 



London 66 12.2 



Paris 40 6 



Vienna 114 19 



Later on, Dr. Park in a study of the average death rate from diph- 

 theria in 19 large cities of the world in 1893 shows it to have been 

 slightly over TO per 100,000; in 1895, when the antitoxin treatment 

 was introduced it began to fall, and by 1907, when antitoxin was gener- 

 ally employed, the rate had dropped to 17 per 100,000. 



In the London hospitals the mortality has been reduced from 29 

 per cent, to about 10 per cent. The same is true of other large hospitals 

 of the world. 



These studies extending over widely diverse localities and long 

 periods of time do away with such possible errors as varying severities 

 of epidemics or chance local conditions. 



Not only has the death rate been much lowered, but the severity of 

 the disease and its complications have been marvellously changed for 

 the better. Perhaps this is best seen in the great diminution of the fatal 

 and agonizing croup cases, where the false membrane descends into the 

 windpipe and causes death by slow strangulation. "We wish those who 

 are trying to throttle scientific research would witness the awful struggle 

 of a child dying from diphtheritic croup. Fortunately even physicians 

 are now seldom forced to go through such an ordeal, owing to the benefi- 

 cent results of a treatment directly inaugurated as a result of animal 

 research. At the Willard Parker Hospital, even the late and neglected 

 cases of croup that have not had the remedy before admission, after a 

 large, though belated dose of antitoxin now very rarely die from stran- 

 gulation. If they succumb to other complications, they are at least 

 mercifully spared the torture of prolonged strangling. Before anti- 



