I 4 4 IMMUNE SERA 



lowed by various skin manifestations, mostly of 

 an urticarial character. Following these came 

 a great mass of evidence which made it clear that 

 following the injection of antidiphtheric serum 

 these sequelae were usually comparatively harmless. 

 Heubner in 1894 and von Bokay somewhat later 

 expressed the opinion that these manifestations 

 were due to other properties than the antitoxin 

 in the serum, and this has proved to be the case. 

 Johannessen produced the same effects by injecting 

 normal horse serum. It has been shown that the 

 skin eruptions and other symptoms follow in direct 

 proportion to the amount of serum injected, a fact 

 which has led to the concentration of the sera by 

 getting rid of the non-antitoxic proteid constituents. 

 In their exhaustive study, already mentioned, 

 v. Pirquet and Schick described the various clinical 

 manifestations following the injection of horse serum 

 into man, and gave the name " serum disease " to 

 the symptom complex. The principal symptoms 

 of this disease are a period of incubation varying 

 in length from eight to thirteen days, fever, skin 

 eruptions, swelling of the lymph glands, leucopenia 

 joint symptoms, oedema, and albuminuria. 



Theories of Anaphylaxis. It was difficult tc 

 account for the long period of incubation in the pro- 

 duction of these serum rashes. With poisons 

 capable of self -multiplication (bacteria, etc.), this 

 period was usually referred to the time necessary 



