ON THE ANTITOXINS OF DIPHTHERIA. 199 



joints, is occasionally produced. Since diphtheria is at first 

 a purely local disease, Loftier has brought forward a method 

 of treatment which is claimed to have had a success not 

 inferior to that of antitoxic serum. The application of an 

 alcoholic solution of 36 per cent, of toluol and 4 per cent, 

 liquor ferri sesquichloratis at frequent intervals was exten- 

 sively used in Greifswald during an epidemic of diphtheria in 

 1 893- 1 894. Not a single patient out of seventy-one treated 

 in this manner succumbed (20). The anti-diphtherin, pro- 

 posed as a local remedy by Klebs (21), does not appear to 

 have been followed by any results comparable to the success 

 obtained by antitoxic serum or LofBer's fluid (22). 



Behring, the real founder of serum therapeutics, has 

 given elaborate directions for rendering animals immune. 

 The degree to which this is possible varies in different 

 species, but serum of great antitoxic power can only be 

 obtained if very virulent toxins are employed. Horses, 

 dogs, cows, goats, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs can all 

 reach various grades of immunity by repeated subcutaneous 

 injections of diphtheria toxin in steadily increasing doses, a 

 method which was devised by Ehrlich (23). Originally 

 Behring recommended that trichloride of iodine should be 

 mixed with the first injections, and Roux (24), who works 

 with a toxin prepared by the growth of Bacillus diphtherise on 

 a thin stratum of peptone-veal-bouillon exposed to a current 

 ol damp air, adds to the first dose one-tenth the volume of 

 •3 per cent, solution of iodine. The results obtained by 

 Wernicke (25), though not of practical use, are exceedingly 

 interesting. He has shown that dogs can reach a high 

 degree of immunity if they are fed with the flesh of sheep 

 dead from diphtheria, or from such as had been rendered 

 immune. The dogs are found to yield antitoxic serum 

 in both experiments, and this is claimed also to be effica- 

 cious in the treatment of the disease in man. A method 

 employed by Dr. Klein is described in the March number 

 of " Science Progress " for 1895 ; the immunising of horses 

 being effected by repeated injections of large doses of living 

 virulent bacilli. Whatever method may be employed to 

 confer immunity, a high grade is only reached after some 



