6 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



free from toxic bodies. One c. cm. will counteract the smallest dose of 

 tuberculin that will produce a reaction in a tuberculous man. The 

 serum is said also to possess appreciable germicidal properties. Mara- 

 gliano has knowledge of 1,362 tuberculous patients treated by his serum. 

 Eighty per cent were benefited by it. The most favorable results were 

 obtained in afebrile cases with localized lesions. In cases of mixed 

 infection the serum was less useful. Maragliano has also shown that 

 the serum of tuberculous patients treated with his serum was two to 

 three times as antitoxic as it was before the injections. 



Mafïucci and Di Vestea (56), have attempted to attain the same 

 end by using sheep, which are supposed to be refractory to tuberculosis, 

 employing the methods of Héricourt and Kichet and the " mithridatiza- 

 tion " method with Behring's antitoxin. They injected both dead and 

 living bacilli into the sheep, but found that the serum resulting I'was 

 neither curative nor prophylactic, but at most caused some retardation 

 of the disease. They found moreover that while the serum was inno- 

 cuous for guinea-pigs in doses of two c. cm. per hundred grammes, 

 one-fifth of a c. cm. in rabbits produced a fatal haemoglobinuria. When 

 added to a culture of tubercle bacilli in the proportion of four to one 

 some attenuation of the germs was produced. 



Niemann (69) has used goats. He injected for some weeks a tuber- 

 culin derived from a very virulent stock of bacilli until he was giving 

 fifteen c. cm. Then he injected an alcoholic precipitate from tuber- 

 culin that had been proved to be extremely toxic, beginning at first 

 with twelve to eighteen milligrammes and increasing after a month 

 to half to one gramme. He found that by the use of the antitoxic 

 serum thus prepared he could prolong the disease and claimed to have 

 observed good results in human beings. 



The results of DeSchweinitz and Dorset (80), are somewhat similar. 

 They inoculated cows and horses with tuberculin and bacilli and found 

 that this conferred on their sera some powers of retarding the disease 

 in guinea-pigs. The serum of cows inoculated with attenuated bacilli 

 proved to be more potent. 



Trudeau and Baldwin (105), were able to produce a marked degree 

 of immunity in rabbits by the injection of attenuated cultures but the 

 serum of such animals did not appear to have gained antitoxic proper- 

 ties. In a large number of experiments with sheep, asses, rabbits, and 

 chickens inoculated with living germs, they thought that the sera thus 

 fortified possessed slight antitoxic properties. Their results were, how- 

 ever, not very convincing. 



From the above mentioned observations it will be gathered that the 

 results of experiment are by no means uniform and not entirely satis- 

 factory. The best results have been obtained where in addition to the 



