456 BA CTERIOLOG Y. 



9.6 per cent.; while for 1736 cases occurring at the 

 same time and in the same locality, but not so treated, 

 there was a death rate of 34.7 per cent. 1 



Holt 2 summarizes the results obtained in the treat- 

 ment of 87 cases with dysentery immune serum. De- 

 cided improvement was noted in only 12 of the patients. 

 These were principally hospital cases, and hence rather 

 grave forms of the disease. Another factor which prob- 

 ably operated against the favorable influence of the 

 serum is the fact that the serum treatment was generally 

 preceded by a careful bacteriological analysis of the stools 

 in order to establish a positive diagnosis, requiring two 

 or three days so that the serum treatment was instituted 

 late in the course of the disease. 



Holt points out that the conditions necessary to obtain 

 success in the serum treatment of cases of dysentery are : 

 First, the early use of the serum, before serious lesions 

 have developed or before the patient's general condition 

 has been too profoundly impaired ; second, the serum 

 must be administered in repeated doses, one or two doses 

 a day, and continued for several days in severe cases. 



1 The foregoing sketch is compiled from : 



Shiga: "Ueber den Dysenteric-bacillus (Bacillus Dysenteries)," 

 Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie und Parasitenkunde, 1898, Abt. i. Bd. 

 xxiv. Nos. 22, 23, 24. 



Flexner: " On the Etiology of Tropical Dysentery," Philadelphia 

 Medical Journal, Sept. 1, 1900. 



2 Holt : Studies from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 

 1904, vol. ii. 



