100 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



ture : not that its use, all over the world, in many 

 millions of cases, has never caused a death.* No 

 serum-treatment is perfect. Only, this we know, 

 that diphtheria-antitoxin has by this time, taking 

 one country with another, saved more than a 

 quarter of a million lives. How could it do other- 

 wise ? For it is Nature's own remedy. A perfectly 

 healthy and well-fed horse is gradually and pain- 

 lessly immunised, with small doses of the toxin, so 

 that its blood contains the antitoxin. The brewing 

 of this antitoxin, this antidote, in the horse, is 

 Nature's own method. The horse is then bled, 

 and the serum of the blood is put, by means of a 

 hollow needle, under the patient's skin. The 

 patient, of course, down with diphtheria, is brewing 

 his own antitoxin, in his own blood, as fast as he 

 can : but the fear is, that the diphtheria-germs in 

 him may be brewing toxin faster than he is brewing 

 antitoxin. Therefore, the horse's antitoxin must 

 be used, to reinforce the patient's antitoxin. That, 

 we must all agree, is a thoroughly reasonable treat- 

 ment. Only, it must be given immediately, a 

 full dose of it. Here is a table, from the cases at 



* It does not cause any sort or kind of paralysis. Post- 

 diphtheritic paralyses are due to the disease, not to the 

 treatment. They are the work of the toxin, not of the anti- 

 toxin. They occur, as in diphtheria, so in typhoid fever. 

 See, for all this, Dr. C. J. Martin's evidence before the Royal 

 Commission on Vivisection, vol. iii., p. 219. 



