WILLIAM H. PARK 943 



TREATMENT OF TYPHOID FEVER BY SERUM FROM CONVALESCENT CASES 



NicoUe and ConseiP have treated five patients with the serum of convalescent 

 typhoid patients. The dose was about 130 cc. ; in their experience the duration of the 

 disease was not shortened. A few others have used the serum with possibly favorable 

 results. It is seldom used, 



USE OF SERUM FROM CONVALESCENT CASES IN THE TREATMENT OF 

 WHOOPING COUGH 



It is now usually thought that whooping cough is a specific infectious disease due 

 to the Bordet-Gengou bacillus; during the course of the second or third week, anti- 

 bodies appear which are specific by agglutination and by complement tests. For the 

 purpose of determining the value of this method, Bleyer^ carried out injections of 

 human blood in the early weeks of this disease in forty-five cases. These were divided 

 into three groups of fifteen cases each. In group A the blood injected was from persons 

 who were convalescent or who had recovered from whooping cough within three 

 months. In group B the blood was from persons who had had the disease at more 

 remote periods, and in group C from persons, who, so far as they knew, had never had 

 it. Groups B and C were designed as controls to A. 



The ages of the children in all groups averaged under three years. In group A, in 

 which convalescent's blood was used, five were in the first half-year of life, one was 

 five weeks old, and one thirty days old. The stage of the disease at which the treat- 

 ment was given was about the same in the three groups. Dosage was gauged in a 

 rough way to body weight of donnee; this varied between 40 and 125 cc, divided into 

 two, three, or four doses and injected into a muscle (gluteus). 



The results of the treatment in the three groups may be summarized; in group A 

 of fifteen children whose average age was twenty-eight months, who received con- 

 valescent's blood during the early weeks of whooping cough, there occurred no deaths 

 and no serious complications; the course of the disease was, however, in no definite 

 way different than is usually seen, and was not appreciably influenced by the treat- 

 ment except in three. This is a very small proportion, and it is more than likely that 

 in fifteen cases three of them might very well run an unexpectedly mild course without 

 attracting a great deal of notice. The blood pictures of two of these, however, were 

 interesting: In case 4, during the third week of the disease, a 50,000 white count came 

 down after 60 cc. of convalescent's blood to 18,000 and the mononuclear percentage 

 fell from 74 to 50; this drop was coincident with clinical improvement; this was a 

 hand fed baby of five months who weighed but 3,860 gm. 



In group B, in case i, in which the blood used was from the mother who had had 

 pertussis twenty years before, quite as satisfactory improvement occurred as in any 

 case in group A; in this group there were two pneumonias which recovered. There 

 were also two pneumonias in group C with one death, and in this group there was one 

 case which seemed to have been very favorably affected by the injections of normal 

 blood. 



' NicoUe, C, and Conseil, E.: Ann. de Vlnst. Pasteur, 26, 332. 1912. 



= Bleyer, A.: Am. J. M. Sc, 154, 40. 1917. 



