SERUM THERAPY 125 



the same discovery independently of Koch in 

 1881, isolating and cultivating the streptococcus. 

 An analysis of more than 1,800 cases of erysip- 

 elas indicates that age has a decisive influence 

 upon the mortality after the forty-fifth year. 

 The general mortality rate is 6 1 ,/> per cent, 

 while in traumatic cases it is 14Vi> per cent and 

 in those over seventy years of age 46 per cent. 

 Sepsis The bacteriology of puerperal sepsis 

 and general septicemia show that streptococcus 

 infection is usually responsible for these condi 

 tions. The infectious nature of puerperal 

 sepsis was shown by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes 

 in 1843. 



ANTISTREPTOCOCCUS SERUM THERAPY 



When Antistreptococcus Serum was first in- 

 troduced, the profession was very hopeful that 

 it might cure the many cases of streptococcic in- 

 fection which had so consistently resisted all at- 

 tempts of treatment in a high percentage of 

 cases. Experimental work by Weaver and 

 Tunnicliff shows that the injection of Antistrep- 

 tococcus Serum into animals is followed by an 

 increased phagocytic power of the leukocytes of 

 brief duration, and increased opsonic power for 



