328 Mr Myers, The Standardisation of Antivenomous Serum. 



The Standardisation of Antivenomous Serum. By Walter 

 Myers, M.A. ; John Lucas Walker Student in the University 

 of Cambridge. 



[Read 7 May 1900.] 



The Standardisation of Antivenomous Serum is of some theo- 

 retical interest, as well as of practical importance, for the first 

 step in studying the process of neutralisation of a toxin by its 

 antitoxin is to obtain a reliable method of measuring the latter. 

 As illustrating the practical bearing of the subject, the fact may 

 be mentioned that some 20,000 persons are reported to have died 

 from snake bite in India during the year 1898. 



Now it is a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain clinical 

 evidence of the therapeutic value of an antitoxin. Diphtheria 

 antitoxin is one of the most successful antitoxins, and the 

 clinicians were long undecided as to its value, and even now 

 their opinions are not altogether in agreement. There has never 

 to my knowledge been any doubt as to the laboratory value — if 

 I may use the expression — of this antitoxin. In the case of 

 snake poison however the case is different. As is shewn by the 

 history of the therapeutics of snake-bite, there has been the 

 greatest difficulty in determining the value of various remedies em- 

 ployed, as is well illustrated by the case of strychnine 1 . Further, 

 the antivenomous serum is prepared by immunisation against a 

 mixture of venoms of which Cobra poison forms 80 / o . Calmette 

 in whose laboratory the antitoxin is made, claims that it neutral- 

 ises, and is for a certain time at least after the bite, even curative 

 for, the bite of all poisonous snakes. Other observers however 

 have not substantiated this claim. Cunningham 2 , for instance, 

 found that in the laboratory the antitoxin has very little if any 

 neutralising effect even upon Cobra poison, against which it 

 should be most efficacious. And more recently Stephens 3 has 

 shewn that its power of neutralising the venom of certain other 

 snakes is very limited indeed. 



It is possible that the results of Cunningham were due to 

 a deterioration of the serum after leaving Lille, its place of 

 manufacture, a deterioration doubtless in some part due to the 

 effect of temperature on the antitoxin. It is therefore important 

 that a reliable method of standardisation should be used for the 

 serum which is employed clinically, both in the advantage of the 

 patient, and in view of obtaining reliable statistics as to its 



1 Martin, System of Medicine, Ed. by Clifford Allbutt. 



2 Sci. Mem. of Med. Off. of India, 1896. 



3 Stephens, Journ. Path, and Bact. 1900. 



