VACCINATING INJECTION 65 



atropine. Without entering into the details of these 

 experiments, we may say that Friedberger and Mita, 

 then Mita alone, were unable to demonstrate any 

 appreciable effect,^ although they employed in- 

 creased doses of atropine, and confirmed the indica- 

 tions laid down by Auer. Ascoli^ proposed to vary 

 the sera in order to avoid anaphylactic symptoms. 

 If an individual had been injected once with horse 

 serum, he should the second time be injected with 

 goat serum. If a fresh serum treatment was con- 

 sidered necessary, he should be injected with drome- 

 dary serum. In proceeding thus, we should be sure, 

 says Ascoli, of screening him from serum S3^mptoms. 



It is to these sera that the Italian scientist gives 

 the name of " anallergetic," thus emphasising their 

 peculiar quality of not giving rise to any allergetic 

 or anaphylactic symptoms. Most certainly the means 

 recommended by Ascoli is reliable, but it does not 

 appear very practicable. First of all, it is very 

 difficult, supposing it to be only for the purpose of a 

 single serum — antidiphtheritic, for example^ — to have 

 at one's disposal all at one time horses, goats, sheep, 

 or dromedaries possessing an increased and accurately 

 titrated antiserum. Admitting that this difficulty, 

 which is not to be lightly regarded, can be sur- 

 mounted, it is necessary, to avoid any confusion, that 

 each person should possess a kind of memorandum 

 book or serum dossier, in which is jotted down the 

 kind of animal purveyor of serum, and this would be 

 presented to the doctor every time he judged it 

 expedient to make a new injection of serum. 



One would agree that it is infinitely simpler to have 

 recourse to the procedure of small or graduated doses, 

 which is now sanctioned by long practice. 



We have already observed that in France serum 



1 Zeiischrift f. Immunitatsf., I. Orig., xi., p. 501, 1911. 



2 Deutsche Med. Woch., xxxvi., p. 1215, 1910. 



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