242 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



in a solid form, in which, it is claimed, it can be kept 

 indefinitely, shipped any distance, and used after simple 

 solution in water. Their method is to precipitate the 

 antitoxin from the blood of immunized dogs with alcohol. 

 Numerous cases of the beneficial action of this antitoxin 

 are on record. 



As Welch has pointed out, the antitoxin of tetanus has 

 proved to be rather a disappointment in human medicine, 

 and also for the treatment of large animals, such as the 

 horse. The results following its injection, in combination 

 with the sterile toxin, into mice, guinea-pigs, and rabbits 

 are highly satisfactory, but the amount needed, in pro- 

 portion to the body-weight, to save the animal from the 

 toxin being manufactured in its body by bacilli increases 

 so enormously with the day or hour of the disease as to 

 make the dosage, which increases millions of times where 

 that of diphtheria antitoxin increases but tenfold, a matter 

 of difficulty and uncertainty. Nocard also calls atten- 

 tion to the fact that the existence of tetanus is unknown 

 until there is sufficient toxemia to produce spasms, and 

 that therefore it is impossible to attack the disease in its 

 inception ; we are obliged to meet it upon the same 

 grounds as diphtheria in the later days of the disease 

 a time when it is well known that the chances of im- 

 provement are greatly lessened. 



Of course, as there is no other remedy that combats 

 the disease at all, the antitoxin is one which, when ob- 

 tainable, should always be employed. 



