20 ANAPHYLAXIS 



Vaccines exerting a curative as well as preventive effect 

 may also be obtainable. This is a justifiable expectation, 

 for human patients who have been exposed to the contagium 

 of smallpox, if promptly vaccinated with cow-pox lymph, 

 have the smallpox attack favourably modified. Perhaps 

 still more to the point are Pasteur's experiments with rabies. 

 He inoculated dogs and rabbits with lethal doses of rabies 

 virus, and thereafter with repeated doses of vaccine. No 

 serious results followed, although control animals inoculated 

 with rabies virus, but not with the vaccine, died. 



The general method of fighting these pathogenic bacteria 

 at present at our command consists in strict isolation of 

 animals affected by such specific diseases, and fully recognis- 

 ing and acting on the fact that infected subjects and their 

 discharges are apt to distribute the virus. Remedial 

 measures must be adopted early if possible, before tha 

 bacteria have multiplied, and before the toxins are pro- 

 duced. In such cases as rabies, which have a long incuba- 

 tion stage, there will be time for the protective operation 

 of vaccines, which appear to confer on the tissues a tolerance 

 of the bacteria, and enable them successfully to cope with 

 the intruders and their products. Every endeavour must 

 be made to maintain in its fullest vigour both the part 

 primarily attacked and the system generally, with the view 

 that the healthy tissues may, if practicable, destroy the 

 parasites and their products. The excreting channels, 

 moreover, will be maintained in healthy action, in order 

 that waste and diseased materials, as well as the organisms 

 themselves, may be removed. Disinfectants will continue 

 to be used so that the bacteria and their spores shall be 

 destroyed, and the spread of the disease prevented. 



Anaphylaxis. When the serum of a horse is injected 

 into a rabbit, a specific antiserum body similar to a specific 

 antitoxin is produced by the tissues of the rabbit, and we 

 may say that an antibody has been formed. During the 

 period that this process is going on, however, the rabbit 

 appears to become, during one phase (the negative phase 

 of Wright and others), very much more susceptible to the 

 action of the horse serum. Indeed, the horse serum appears 

 to become intensely toxic. There has been no change in 



