328 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



reported. Behring comments upon it by saying that 

 " Maragliano's tubercle-antitoxin contains no antitoxin." 



Babes and Proca, in an experimental research upon the 

 action of the antituberculous serum, claim for it a decided 

 specific action, and demonstrate experimentally that ani- 

 mals inoculated with tubercle bacilli and injected with 

 the serum are protected from the spread of the disease. 



Mafucci and diVestra found that by injecting guinea- 

 pigs with serum from sheep immunized by injections 

 first of dead, then of living cultures of tubercli bacilli, 

 although no cures were brought about, the vitality of 

 the animals was maintained longer. Unprotected animals 

 died in fifty to fifty-three days. Those injected after in- 

 fection, seventy-four days, and those injected before infec- 

 tion, ninety-one days. 



The author 1 made an elaborate study of so-called Anti- 

 tiiberculin. For a long period donkeys were injected 

 with increasing doses of tuberculin, in order that an 

 antitoxin — antituberculin — might be generated in their 

 blood. Experiments upon guinea-pigs showed that the 

 serum was powerless to immunize against the tubercle 

 bacillus, or to cure established tuberculosis. The serum, 

 however, had the power of annulling the effects of tuber- 

 culin upon tuberculous animals. While a failure experi- 

 mentally, certain clinicians claim that in practice it ex- 

 erts a beneficial action upon patients. Indeed, presuming 

 that an antituberculin is formed, it is but natural that it 

 should do good in all cases in which it is probable that 

 the patient is poisoned by tuberculin or a similar product. 



Rather nearer the desideratum are the experiments of 

 De Schweinitz, 2 who injected cows and horses with increas- 

 ing quantities of bouillon cultures of a greatly attenuated 

 tubercle bacillus, and subsequently found that the serum 

 possessed the property of rendering guinea-pigs immune 

 to the virulent bacilli. It is said that this serum has pro- 

 duced beneficial results in human medicine. 



1 Jour, of the Atner. Med. Assoc, Aug. 21, 1897. 



2 Centralbl. f. Bakt. und Parasitenk., Sept. 15, 1897, Bd. xxii., Nos. 8 and 9. 



