888 LOCAL AND TISSUE IMMUNITY 



by intravenous inoculation. In other words, to use Besredka's argument, once the 

 susceptible cells are desensitized they are protected from injury which is evident in 

 normal animals, irrespective of the route of introduction of the virus. If it be true 

 that the susceptible cells are reached inevitably wherever the dysentery bacillus is 

 introduced, the whole argument of the desirability of a direct application of the im- 

 munizing dose to the susceptible cells falls to the ground since the usual subcutaneous 

 method would equally avail. In the case of dysentery, however, a real advantage for 

 the oral administration lies in the severe reactions produced by other routes.^ 



Of course the possibility of vaccination by the mouth is an already ancient prob- 

 lem and, according to Calmette,^ dates from the work of Pasteur on chicken cholera 

 in 1880. The repeated attempts to render such a method practicable between the 

 years 189 2-19033 were largely for the purpose of affording an easy and comfortable 

 method of giving vaccine. In the case of dysentery, then, oral administration is cer- 

 tainly more comfortable and does to some extent at least protect against natural 

 infection, but until it be proved that it protects as well or better than immunization 

 by other routes it certainly cannot supplant them. It is very likely that whatever 

 active immunity may be produced against the dysentery bacillus is antitoxic in 

 nature, and certainly it has not been proved that antitoxic immunity may be local 

 in nature, in spite of the work of Roemer'' with abrin and that of Hazen^ with ricin. 



In the case of the typhoidal fevers, the possibility of oral vaccination by Besred- 

 ka's method would seem founded on more acceptable and full clinical data, but intro- 

 duces in its experimental and initial aspects a variation which does anything but 

 confirm the accuracy of his hypothesis of local immunity. The reader should consult 

 Besredka's monograph if he wishes to judge whether or not the oral method of 

 vaccination against typhoid is as good as the subcutaneous method which it may con- 

 ceivably supplant. Its author himself does not assert that the method is better but 

 simply that it may be as good. 



In Germany, between 1906 and 1910, a number of experimenters, Loeffler,*' 

 Kutscher and Meinicke,^ Wolf,^ and Bruckner,' had demonstrated the possibility of 

 immunizing certain laboratory animals with various strains of parathyphoid bacilli by 

 the oral administration of living or dead bacilli. In 191 1 Metchnikofif and Besredka,'" 

 in connection with their interesting production of typhoid fever in anthropoid apes, 

 indicated in a few animals that the previous oral administration of killed cultures 

 might under certain conditions protect them against ingestion of a virulent culture of 

 typhoid bacilli. In attempting to repeat these results in rabbits Besredka met at 



' Enlows, E.: Fub. Health Rep., 40, 14. 1925. 



= Calmette, A.: Ann. de VInst. Pasteur, 37, 900. 1923. ^ See various citations. 



'• Roemer, P.: Arch, f Oplilli., 54, 99. 1902. 



5 Hazen, E. L.: J. Immunol., 13, 171. 1927. 



^Loeffler, F.: Gedenkschrift of R. V. Lcuthold (ed. Schjerming). Berlin, 1906. 



7 Kutscher, and Meinicke, E.: Zlschr. f. Hyg. u. Infektionskrankh., 52, 301. 1906. 



* Wolf, K.: Miinchen. med. Wchnschr., 55, 270. 1908. 



'Bruckner, G.: Ztschr.f. rmmunitals/orsch. u.exper. Thcrap., 8, 439. 1911. 



" Metchnikoff, E., and Besredka, A.: Ann. de Vliist. Pasteur, 25, 193. 1911. 



