354 BACTERIOLOGY. 



bacillus, that every such case shall be 

 taken under treatment as early as possible, 

 and that pathological and clinical experience 

 shall be left out of account, the statistics are 

 distorted so extravagantly in favor of the 

 serum therapy, that available material for com- 

 parison is lacking. In spite of this distortion 

 the result of serum therapy in the hospitals is 

 not so favorable as that obtained in the aggre- 

 gate. Nevertheless there seems to exist in 

 the hospitals a certain diminution of the mor- 

 tality through the use of the curative serum, 

 if the earlier results are used as a basis of com- 

 parison. It must be borne in mind that peo- 

 ple who in quiet and coolly critical times would 

 not come to the hospitals, do, under the influ- 

 ence of such excitement as was stirred up by 

 Koch's tuberculin and by Behring's serum, 

 betake themselves to those places where they 

 will be treated with the universal panacea. 

 Keeping in mind both the essential change in 

 the diagnostic conception of diphtheria and the 

 successful results obtained with the serum, 

 which are really considerable, we are still able 

 to say that serum therapy, as well as protective 

 inoculation with the serum, does not possess 

 the character of a " specific " treatment. From 

 a " specific " cure we must expect altogether 

 different results from those thus far obtained, 



