IMMUNITY. 383 



or upon the special circumstances of the 

 case. 



Starting from the idea of antagonism and 

 from the clinical observation that morbid 

 tumors are favorably affected by an outbreak 

 of erysipelas, Emmerich and Scholl have 

 made animals immune against streptococci, 

 and have attempted to cure anthrax, tuber- 

 culosis, sarcoma and cancer with the serum 

 of these animals. While Emmerich and 

 Scholl obtained good results in their experi- 

 ments upon man, other clinicians who have 

 worked with this serum have up to the present 

 time not met with success. 



With a more precise analysis of the facts, 

 then, it appears that the specific serum con- 

 taining the antitoxin does not cure because it 

 immunizes, but that it cures in spite of its not 

 immunizing. The serum cure is not a sort of 

 rapid immunization, but is based solely on the 

 fact that strongly active bodies present in the 

 curative serum act antitoxically or bactericid- 

 ally, and hence display in an exalted degree 

 an activity which we find exists also as a gen- 

 eral capacity of the normal healthy serum of 

 all animals, although developed in different 

 ways according to the species. There is, in 

 fact, between the antitoxic and bactericidal 

 power of the normal serum which is deter- 



