788 PASSIVE IMMUNIZATION SERUM THERAPY 



similar for all strains, so that immunization with the toxin of one yields 

 an antitoxin capable of neutralizing the toxins of all. With dysentery 

 bacilli, snake venoms, and pollens, however, the toxins are more specific, 

 and produce more specific antitoxins. 



Recent work in pneumonia by Cole and Dochez and their coworkers 

 in the Rockefeller Institute, and Neufeld in Germany, indicates a more 

 promising future for antibacterial immunization. These investigators 

 have been able to divide pneumococci into four main groups, have 

 worked out a relatively quick method of determining the group to which 

 a particular pneumococcus belongs, and have prepared immune serums 

 for these main groups. By injecting the serum corresponding to the 

 strain producing a given infection, encouraging results have been ob- 

 tained in the treatment of pneumonia, whereas the polyvalent serums 

 have been found, after quite extensive use, to yield indifferent results, 

 due in part to a relatively low content in the particular antibodies for that 

 certain strain causing a given infection. 



These investigations in pneumonia are of great importance because 

 they reveal an immense field of interesting and similar researches in 

 streptococcus, gonococcus, meningococcus, typhoid, and other infections. 

 While it is obviously impossible to prepare an immune serum for each 

 and every strain of microorganism, it may be possible to subdivide 

 strains into a few main groups and then discover a method for quickly 

 determining to which group a particular culture belongs, so that the 

 corresponding immune serum may be administered. In this manner 

 we may be able to reduce the 30 per cent, mortality still remaining in 

 epidemic meningitis and otherwise place the treatment of specific in- 

 fections upon a more strictly scientific basis, as in the serum treatment 

 of diphtheria. 



As previously stated, the method and route of injecting an immune 

 serum are of considerable importance in serum therapy. Large doses of 

 serum should be given until the desired effect is secured, or until it 

 becomes evident that more can be produced. In the mean time manu- 

 facturers should make every effort to produce potent serums and to 

 concentrate them, if possible, just as diphtheria antitoxin is concentrated. 



THE SERUM TREATMENT OF MENINGOCOCCUS MENINGITIS 

 During the pandemic of meningococcal cerebrospinal meningitis in 

 1904-05 several laboratories sought to produce an immune serum for the 

 purpose of treating human cases of this infection. 



