CHAPTER XVI 

 SERUM TREATMENT OF LOBAR PNEUMONIA 



The theoretical basis for the administration of specific immune 

 serum in the therapy of pneumonia; a discussion of complicating 

 problems and of the limitations of serum therapy; with a sum- 

 mary of the results so far observed in the clinic. 



The intelligent employment of specific immune serum in the 

 treatment of pneumonia has abundant factual justification. 

 The scientific background based on precise animal experimentation 

 and the immunological study of artificial infection in animals and 

 natural infection in man makes it possible to predict with a con- 

 siderable degree of certainty the probable effect of antipneumo- 

 coccic serum in controlling infection by Pneumococcus, and to un- 

 derstand some of the very obvious present limitations of specific 

 serum therapy. The results at the bedside bear out the theoretical 

 expectations. 



The Rationale of Serum Therapy 



The presence of virulent pneumococci in susceptible tissues stirs 

 the latent physiological functions of the body to elaborate sub- 

 stances antagonistic to Pneumococcus. The same immunological 

 defenses may be called into being by introducing into the sound 

 animal body parts or the whole of artificially attenuated pneumo- 

 cocci. 



The specific immune substances elaborated in response to the 

 antigenic stimulus are extruded from the tissue cells into the cir- 

 culating blood in which they may be identified and measured. These 

 antibodies, through the medium of the serum in which they are 

 present, may be transferred to the blood stream of man already 

 beleaguered by pneumococci and, by combining with the cocci, ren- 



