382 ISHIGAMI. 



more than fifteen times) by other practitioners, there were 232 who were com- 

 pletely cured and 228 who were partially cured. These last two figures com- 

 bined make 400, equal to 59.13 per cent of the total number of patients. 

 Those who discontinued the treatment for various reasons numbered 162 ; the 

 deaths 03 ; and the remainder, 93. 



IMMUNE SERUM. 



The results of previous investigators on the problem of the serum 

 therapy of tuberculosis, although undoubtedly very valuable, have not yet 

 reached a stage to permit of the general application of serum therapy to 

 patients. My own investigations of previous years have also failed, 

 because of the difficulty in immunizing animals against tuberculosis and 

 of the characteristic detrimental reaction of the animal serum upon 

 tuberculous patients. I have finally succeeded, however, by means of 

 the injection of the tuberculo-toxoidin, in preparing an immune serum 

 of a comparatively strong efficacy. I have also succeeded in removing 

 the characteristic reaction of animal serum upon tuberculous patients in 

 the manner mentioned below. 



When an animal serum is injected subcutaneously into tuberculous patients, 

 there are often noticed characteristic violent reactions such as acute urticaria 

 about the injected area, redness of the face, palpitation of the heart, increased 

 respiration, itching of the entire surface of the skin and, though rarely, pain in 

 the joints. All these symptoms, which disappear in from five to thirty minutes, 

 are doubtless due, as maintained by Dr. S. Ogata, to the agglutination of the red 

 blood corpuscles. 



When the serum of a goat, a cow or a horse is treated with from 2 to 3 per 

 cent of sodium chloride, kept at 50° C. for thirty minutes, and then filtered 

 through a Chamberland filter, it can be clearly shown under the microscope to 

 have entirely lost the power of agglutinating the blood of tuberculous patients 

 or of healthy people, and, usually it no longer causes any reaction, either local 

 or general, on injection into a patient. 



EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS. 



When 0.1 cubic centimeter of Koch's old tuberculin, which is the fatal dose 

 to a tuberculous guinea pig, is mixed with 0.025 cubic centimeter of the immune 

 serum, and the mixture after ten minutes' standing is injected subcutaneously 

 into a tuberculous guinea pig, there is not the slightest disturbance noticed in 

 the animal. 



When the phagocytic phenomena are examined according to Dr. Wright's 

 method, my immunization serum presents decidedly more marked phagocytic 

 activity than other sera. 



When 0.5 cubic centimeter of the immune 'serum diluted to four times its 

 volume is injected subcutaneously every other day into a tuberculous guinea 

 pig with markedly swollen lymphatic glands, the swelling of the glands is 

 greatly reduced after about ten injections. By further continuing this treatment, 

 the course of the disease is arrested in spite of the fact that the tuberculous 

 lesions of the organs are not yet completed healed. The microscopic sections 

 show the bacilli engulfed in the cells becoming smaller and smaller, thus in- 

 dicating the degeneration produced by the serum. 





