EMPLOYMENT OF BLOOD SERUM 269 



dates back from three months to four years. Flexner carried out 

 experiments with monkeys and proved that the serum of recovered 

 cases was efficacious in the cure of these animals. In 1916-1917 this 

 author used the serum extensively during the epidemic in New York 

 and recommends the combination of intraspinal and intravenous in- 

 jections. Children were given combined doses of 5 to 10 c.c. intra- 

 spinally and 30 to 40 c.c. intravenously. The possibility of conveying 

 the disease is not considered a danger, because the virus has never been 

 detected in the blood. The only difficulty encountered in this method 

 of treatment is that of securing sufficient quantities of serum. Pooling 

 of sera is of the greatest advantage, since the antibody content may 

 vary widely in the sera of different persons. 



During the epidemic of 1917 Mathers, Rosenow, Towne and 

 Wheeler, Nuzum and Herzog, and later Nuzum reported the discovery 

 of a pleomorphic streptococcus which they had constantly observed in 

 the brain and spinal cord, and also in the cerebrospinal fluid in human 

 cases of poliomyelitis. Flexner and Noguchi, Smillie and many others 

 deny the etiological importance of this streptococcus. Rosenow, Nuzum 

 and Willy claim to have produced sera with definite protective and cura- 

 tive effects. In the hands of Nuzum and Willy serum treatment re- 

 duced the mortality in a series of 159 cases from 38 per cent, to 

 11.9 per cent. 



Amoss reported that only imperfect success in developing antibodies 

 in rabbits and monkeys has attended the repeated injection of cultures 

 of the globoid bodies of Flexner and Noguchi and also failed to find 

 evidence that Rosenow's serum is either therapeutically effective in 

 monkeys or possesses antibodies of the same nature as those present in 

 the blood of monkeys which have recovered from experimental polio- 

 myelitis. Since the antibodies in convalescent poliomyelitis serum in man 

 and monkey are identical, this author states that any antibodies present 

 in Rosenow's horse serum do not conform to those occurring in human 

 convalescent serum. Again Amoss and Eberson in a later paper con- 

 cluded that the anti-streptococcus serum of Nuzum and Willy fails to 

 show in the monkey neutralizing or therapeutic power against small 

 doses of the virus of poliomyelitis. Under the same conditions the 

 serum of monkeys which had recovered from experimental poliomye- 

 litis proved neutralizing and protective. These facts leave some doubt 

 as to the actual value of anti-poliomyelitis horse serum, and until 

 more conclusive evidence has been brought forward by the supporters 

 of the streptococcus as an etiological factor we believe that the only 

 effective serum existing is that of convalescent or recovered cases. 

 Neustadter and Banzhaf immunized horses against a filtrate obtained 

 from the digested brain and cord of a human case of the disease. The 

 immune serum gave encouraging results in a few experiments with 

 monkeys, but as yet data are too limited to justify a conclusion as to 

 the usefulness of this serum. 



Rinderpest. Kolle and Turner injected gradually increasing doses 

 of virulent rinderpest blood and also bile of infected animals into oxen 



