Sanitation 299 



mentally investigated by De Renzi,* Washbourn, f and 

 Pane.t 



Washbourn prepared an antipneumococcus serum that 

 protected rabbits against ten times the fatal dose of live 

 pneumococci, in doses of 0.3 c.c. In general, the lines upon 

 which he operated were those of Behring, Marmorek's work 

 with the streptococcus furnishing most of the details. 

 Two cases of human pneumonia seem to have derived some 

 benefit from large doses of this serum. The serums of Pane 

 and De Renzi were not so powerful as those of Washbourn, 

 requiring about i c.c. to protect a rabbit. 



McFarland and Lincoln || succeeded in immunizing a 

 horse against large doses of a virulent culture of the 

 pneumococcus and obtained a serum, of which 0.5 to 

 0.25 c.c. protected rabbits from many times the fatal dose. 



The antipneumococcic serums thus far produced have 

 given disappointing results in clinical application, probably 

 because their preparation was based upon an antagonism to 

 the toxic products of the pneumococcus rather than upon the 

 destruction of the organism itself. From the most recent 

 investigations upon immunity it is evident that in all dis- 

 eases in which blood invasion is as frequent as in pneumonia, 

 and the toxicity of the micro-organism so feeble, bacteriolysis 

 is to be aimed at. The most recent experiments upon the 

 serum therapy of pneumonia by Passler|| show some gain 

 over the earlier work and give us a more hopeful outlook. 



Sanitation. Pneumon'a is undoubtedly a contagious 

 disease. Exactly how infection takes place is not known, 

 but seeing that the infectious agent is in the respiratory tract 

 from which it is easily discharged into the atmosphere during 

 cough, etc., and the facility with which it can then be inhaled 

 by those nearby, it seems justifiable to conclude that the 

 primary entrance of the organism into the body is through 

 the respiratory tract. Wood** has shown that "the organ- 



*"I1 Policlinico," Oct. 31, 1896, Supplement. 

 f'Brit. Med. Jour.," Feb. 27, 1897, p. 510. 



J " Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk.," May 29, 1897, xxi, 17 and 

 18, p. 664. 



"Jour. Am. Med. Assoc.," Dec. 16, 1899, p. 1534. 

 ||"Deutsches Archiv. fiir klin. Med.," Bd. LXXXII, Nos. 3, 4, 1905; 

 "Jour. Am. Med. Assoc.," May 13, 1905, p. 1538. 



**"Jour. Exp. Med.," Aug. 25, 1905, vn, No. 5, p. 624. 



