478 INFECTION AND RESISTANCE 



treated with his serum. Of this number 43 only died, whereas the 

 average mortality during the same six years at the Paris hospitals 

 was 17 per cent. The injection of the serum he claimed very mark- 

 edly improved the condition of patients in that, after a preliminary 

 period of no apparent change lasting from several hours to 5 or 6 

 days, the temperature goes down and the general condition of the 

 patient changes considerably for the better. He noticed very few 

 complications in these cases, and intestinal hemorrhage occurred 

 four times only. 



A remarkable feature of Chantemesse's treatment is that he in- 

 jected into the patients a few drops only of the serum, and rarely 

 made a second injection, facts which alone tend to persuade one that 

 his apparent therapeutic success was a fortunate accident. 



The opinion originally expressed by Chantemesse that the serum 

 of horses vigorously treated with typhoid bacilli possesses in addition 

 to its bactericidal and opsonic powers definite antitoxic properties 

 recurs again in the work of a number of investigators. Besredka 62 

 prepared a serum by the intravenous injection of typhoid cultures 

 heated to 60 C., continuing the immunization for 6 months. He 

 claims that this serum possesses what he designates as "anti-endo- 

 toxic" properties. A dry extract of typhoid bacilli which in dose of 

 0.01 gram killed a guinea pig of 300 grams regularly became innocu- 

 ous when mixed with small quantities of this horse serum. One c. c. 

 of the horse serum neutralized often as much as two fatal doses of the 

 serum, but it is important theoretically to recognize that Besredka 

 states particularly that even an increase of the quantity of serum 

 never neutralized more than two fatal doses. This is particularly 

 important in connection with the more recent studies on toxic split 

 proteins by Vaughan, and on anaphylatoxins by Bessau and by Zins- 

 ser and Dwyer, in which it has been shown that an animal acquires 

 a tolerance against the toxic substances produced from bacterial and 

 other proteins which, however, never exceeds one or two multiples 

 of the minimum lethal dose. This fact alone would militate against 

 considering the serum of Besredka in any way antitoxic in the sense 

 in which the word is used concerning diphtheria and tetanus anti- 

 toxins where neutralization of poison follows roughly the law of 

 multiples. Besredka's anti-endotoxic sera has recently been very 

 thoroughly investigated by Pfeiffer and Bessau. 63 These investi- 

 gators have found that Besredka's serum exerted a very definite 

 beneficial influence upon typhoid infection in guinea pigs if injected 

 at the same time with the bacilli. In their experiments it also pro- 

 tected somewhat against the toxic properties of substances derived 

 from the typhoid bacillus, and Pfeiffer and Bessau did not believe 

 that this was due to a true antitoxic action, nor that the serum was 



62 Besredka. Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur, 19, 1905, and 20, 1906. 



63 Pfeiffer and Bessau. Centralbl f. Bakt., Vol. 56, 1910. 



