!8 9 6. SERUM THERAPEUTICS. 113 



children's institutions was checked, and the disease completely 

 stamped out by immunising the inmates en bloc with antitoxin. 

 He states, however, that the immunity so conferred lasts only about 

 a month, but this is in most cases all that is required. 



The success which has attended the serum treatment of diphtheria 

 has naturally led to attempts at preparing antitoxic serum for other 

 diseases. Among these maybe mentioned the "anti-streptococcus 

 serum," which is designed to protect against cellulitis and erysipelas, 

 and which already appears to have met with some success in practice. 

 The elaborate researches of Tizzoni and Centanni on antirabic serum 

 have still to bear their practical fruit, but there is good ground for 

 believing that this will be the case. There appears, indeed, scope for 

 the widest extension of the method. As fast as suitable animals can 

 be immunised against a given infectious disease, so fast, we musi 

 believe, can their serum be employed as prophylactic or antidote in 

 its treatment. The method constitutes an entirely new departure in 

 medicine, and is indeed the greatest therapeutical discovery which 

 this generation has witnessed. Every man of science will rejoice that 

 at length experiment, in its rigid scientific sense, is taking its place 

 as the foundation of a rational system of therapeutics in infectious 

 disease. 



F. W. Andrewes. 



