GERMS. 81 



Beauquin in 1828 lost only 4.6 of 300 cases. Eoll in 

 1850 said that in Drontheim, Norway, of some 700 

 cases only about 7 per cent died. Lespeau in 1854 

 wrote that in one regiment of 200 cases only 6 per cent 

 were lost. And Mackinder reported in 1859 a death- 

 rate of only 0.25 per cent in 400 cases in Gainsborough, 

 England. Were this great disparity in the diphtheria 

 death-rate before antitoxin times kept in mind, perhaps 

 we would not so often be treated to the amusing argu- 

 ment that because the death-rate has declined a few 

 degrees in some places since antitoxin has been intro- 

 duced, therefore antitoxin is responsible for the im- 

 provement. 



"How can a thing be considered a specific which gives 

 11.8 per cent mortality in the Berlin Kaiser und 

 Kaiserin Friedrich Kinderkrankenhaus, and at the 

 same time allows a mortality of 23 per cent in the 

 Philadelphia Municipal Hospital, being more than 

 double the mortality in one institution than in the 

 other? Quinine would not be called a specific if it 

 could not cure intermittent fever as well in Chicago 

 as it does in St. Petersburgh or any other city. Until 

 antitoxin brings down the diphtheria death-rate to a 

 point lower than it ever was before, and keeps it at 

 that point, in every place, it must be considered a 

 failure. 



"Within the writer's knowledge diphtheria occurred 

 in the families of four physicians in this city. Of the 

 patients two received antitoxin and promptly died. 

 The other two were not treated with antitoxin and 

 recovered. It is fair to assume that the antitoxin- 



