244 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



tective substances has taken place successfully, it cannot be 

 known, without measurement, whether a superabundance of 

 these substances has been made, and if so, whether they are 

 sufficient to be able to stand the dilution of the total volume 

 of serum. The success obtained by all anti-sera — excepting, 

 of course, the diphtheria and tetanus antitoxins — has been most 

 disappointing; and in spite of the enormous amount of work 

 bestowed upon serum-therapy, it has not advanced at all in 

 its application to practical medicine. 



But imagine that the blood has been drawn from the ex- 

 perimental animal before it has been able to elaborate sufficient 

 anti-substances to neutralise the dose of poison administered to 

 it ; that is to say, that the blood has been drawn off during the 

 negative phase. Under these circumstances it is quite com- 

 prehensible that the serum thus drawn off may actually contain 

 some of the bacterial poison. If this serum be now placed in 

 bottles and labelled anti-serum, " terminological inexactitude " 

 would hardly describe it. Not that in every case the patient 

 would be the loser by these methods. Undesirable consequences 

 have followed the administration of such sera containing very 

 virulent bacterial toxins ; but, on the other hand, if the poison 

 be not in excess good may follow evil, and a rapid cure be 

 effected after a severe negative phase. Chantemesse 1 has, 

 during the past five years, been treating cases of typhoid fever 

 with an " anti-typhoid " serum. His results have been brilliant ; 

 but the fact that the dose administered is only a fraction of a 

 cubic centimetre, that a rise of temperature, associated with 

 enlargement of the spleen, takes place, and that this "phase 

 of reaction " lasts from four to five days, and is followed by a 

 phase of defervescence and amelioration of the general con- 

 dition — these facts have led to the suggestion that this serum 

 is really a vaccine in disguise. 



Serum-therapy has other disadvantages which should be 

 briefly mentioned. The administration of sera very frequently 

 leads to a series of symptoms to which the Germans have given 

 the name " Serum-Krankheit." Urticaria and joint pains are 

 the most prominent features. Studying the coagulability of the 

 blood, Wright has shown that these symptoms are considerably 

 lessened in such cases, and suggested that calcium salts, which 

 he had found increased the coagulability, might be used in the 



1 Presse Medicale, Feb. 1906. 



