HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY 59 



horses. There is such a condition known as 

 "horse asthma" and individuals who are af- 

 fected by this condition are unable to with- 

 stand the odor about a horse stable. 



Fatalities H. F. Gillette collected 28 cases 

 of collapse after serum injection, of which 15 

 died. There was a common history of previ- 

 ous asthmatic trouble in all but 5 of the 28. 

 Rosenau and Anderson of the Hygienic Labor- 

 atory collected some 19 cases of sudden death 

 following the injection of horse serum. These 

 two series of cases are the only ones on record ; 

 and when one considers the enormous number 

 of patients who have been injected with horse 

 serum, these 34 fatal cases become insignifi- 

 cant. 



Besredka's Test The possibility of anaphy- 

 laxis suggests two precautions in serum ther- 

 apy: (1) Except in urgent cases, avoid giving 

 horse serum to individuals known to be asth- 

 matic, especially those whose symptoms are 

 brought on by being around horses. (2) If hy- 

 persusceptibility is suspected, the method of 

 Besredka of the Pasteur Institute in Paris may 

 be applied. In experimenting upon animals, he 

 found that by introducing into the body of an 



