90 BACTERIOLOGY. 



All discharges from the nose and mouth should 

 be collected on paper napkins and burned. A paper 

 napkin should be held .over the nose and mouth while 

 coughing or sneezing. All bed-linen and utensils used 

 by the patient should be soaked in a 5 per cent, solution 

 of carbolic acid and boiled. The sickroom, must be 

 fumigated and cleaned after the manner already 

 described under Disinfection. All well persons, in- 

 cluding the nurse, should receive an immunizing dose 

 of antitoxin. Nurses should wear a gown to protect 

 the uniform and a cap over the hair. 



The curative property of antitoxin was discovered 

 by von Behring in 1894, and is now in universal use 

 for the cure and prevention of diphtheria. By the use 

 of antitoxin the fatal cases have been reduced to one- 

 quarter of those formerly resulting in death. In New 

 " York from 1895 to I 9 I ) 80,000 people received im- 

 munizing doses of antitoxin, and out of this number 

 only 177, or 0.2 per cent., contracted diphtheria, and 

 but one of these resulted fatally. The immunizing 

 dose protects from two to six weeks. Occasionally the 

 injection of antitoxin is followed after a few days by 

 a feeling of malaise, skin eruption, vomiting, albu- 

 minuria, and swelling of the lymphatic glands. This 

 condition is due to anaphylaxis, or an increased sus- 

 ceptibility on the part of the patient to certain con- 

 stituents of the antitoxin, probably the horse-serum, 

 which contains the protective substance. A few cases 

 of sudden death following the injection of diphtheria 

 antitoxin have been attributed to anaphylaxis. 



