the scheme, plague. In 1900 Sir Almroth Edward Wright 257 

 (* 1861, England) had extended the list of diseases thus pro- 

 tected against, by adding typhoid fever. But he did more. Ac- 

 cepting Metchnikorf's theory of immunity ( phagocytosis is its 

 measure) , he showed how such might be favored through the 

 "opsonins;" and yet more important, how by use of the vac- 

 cines previously employed only for the prevention of disease, 

 these might be employed to aid the patient in recovery after 

 the disease had started. Wherry quoted Wright: "The idea that 

 the uninfected and still inactive regions of the body can, by 

 applying the stimulus of a vaccine, be made to bring succour 

 to the infected regions was the mother-idea of vaccine 

 therapy." 



Wherry believed that the logical outgrowth of Wright's 

 studies should lead to the fulfillment of a prophecy: The 

 physician of the future will be an immunizator, explaining 

 why this fair end had not yet come about. "Baffled by the 

 difficulties and uncertainties of the opsonic technique and 

 perhaps justly fearing the dreaded 'negative phase' the 

 physician still fixes his eye on the chemical and physical mani- 

 festations of disease and largely ignores the parasites whose 

 destruction is the sine qua non to recovery." It made him 

 suggest: 



In view of the specificity of antibodies, therapeutic immuniza- 

 tion must develop along specific lines. . . . We must do more 

 than merely inject an antigen. It must be the right antigen 

 administered in the proper dose at sufficiently frequent 

 intervals. 



But how to find it? "When a series of heat-killed bacterial 

 antigens is injected, some give rise to local urticaria. Its pro- 

 duction indicates susceptibility." This local edema Wherry 

 saw as a reaction fatal to the interests of the patient and favor- 

 able to the further life of the invading microorganism, for it 

 "(a) provided dissolved food for the bacteria, (b) diluted 

 antibodies, (c) immobilized phagocytes, (d) prevented ab- 

 sorption of antigenic substance and (e) favored digestion of 

 the fixed tissues and abscess formation." To combat the 

 situation, he counselled the doctor: 



Every effort should be directed toward reducing the edema 



