BACILLI OF THE COLON -TYPHOID-DYSENTERY GROUP 685 



and Meyer 123 believed that an improvement of results could be obtained 

 by mixing the sera of animals that had been immunized with sensitized 

 bacteria and those treated with normal typhoid bacilli. 



At the present time, however, practice has not sustained the hopes of 

 a specific passive immunization in the treatment of typhoid fever. 



Since 1893, various workers have tried to treat typhoid fever by 

 injecting killed cultures or vaccines of typhoid bacilli. No results of 

 importance were obtained until Ichikawa 124 in 1914 began to inject 

 dead typhoid bacilli, intravenously. Gay and Claypole 125 and others 

 have since taken up this method. The intravenous injection of vac- 

 cines in this way has given most astonishing results in that the injection 

 has usually resulted in a violent reaction, with often a chill and sudden 

 drop of temperature, and, subsequently, very often definite improve- 

 ment of the cases. Although this method was at first regarded as spe- 

 cific by the writers mentioned above, Kraus 126 in 1915 showed that he 

 could produce similar reactions in typhoid patients with colon bacilli, 

 as well as with typhoid bacilli, and similar observations were made by 

 Liidke 127 and others. It is now quite clear that, whatever results are 

 obtained by such treatment of typhoid patients, they cannot be regarded 

 as specific reactions in the ordinary sense of the word. 



123 Garbat and Meyer, Zeit. f. exper. Path., 8, 1910, 1. 



124 Ichikawa, Mitteil. d. medic. Gessellsch. zu. Tokio, 1914, 28, H. 21. 



125 Gay and Claypole, Arch. Inter. Med., 12, 1913, 613. 



126 Kraus, Wien. klin. Woch., 1915, 29. 



127 Liidke, Munch, med. Woch., 1915, 321. 



* For a thorough and clear treatment of the problem connected with typhoid 

 fever, see Gay, Typhoid Fever, MacMillan and Company, New York, 1918. 



