174 DIPHTHERIA 



of rein j action, but when the patient has ever shown asthmatic 

 symptoms. With these precautions no physician need fear to use 

 diphtheria antitoxin when it is needed. In order to prevent outbreaks, 

 Heubner, for the past twenty years, has had every child in his hospital 

 injected every fourteen days and no serious result has ever followed. 



When antitoxin is used early in the disease, the extension of the 

 membrane usually stops in a few hours. For this reason, laryngeal 

 diphtheria is now rarely seen except in neglected cases. Not only does 

 the extension of the membrane stop on the administration of the anti- 

 toxin, but as a rule that already formed begins to recede, becomes 

 detached and fades away. It may truly be said that the discovery of 

 antitoxin has largely robbed diphtheria of its terrors, and it might 

 not be amiss to call attention to the fact that without animal experi- 

 mentation this could not have been done. Hundreds of animals have 

 been sacrificed in order that hundreds of thousands of human lives 

 might be saved from one of the most distressing forms of death man 

 has known. 



Notwithstanding the possession of this wonderful and almost mir- 

 aculous preventative and curative agent, the problem of the eradica- 

 tion of diphtheria remains one of the most difficult problems still con- 

 fronting scientific medicine. The bacillus seems well-nigh ubiquitous. 

 Thousands of people in health carry these deadly germs in their throats 

 and mouths. If it has breeding places outside the human body they 

 have not been discovered. The disease is acquired for the most part 

 at least, not from those ill, but from those who are in apparent health. 

 All that we can do at present is to emphasize the desirability of more 

 individuality and less promiscuity in manners of life. The common 

 drinking-cup and other methods of contact with lip to lip directly and 

 indirectly must be discouraged and the importance of oral hygiene 

 must be emphasized, especially among children. 



