ESSAYS ON BACTERIOLOGY. 95 



diphtheritic serum is a specific curative agent for 

 diphtheria, surpassing in its efficacy all other known 

 methods of treatment for this disease." 



There are occasional unpleasant effects in the form 

 of more or less intense erythema, sometimes with 

 fever, severe pains, glandular swellings, and even 

 effusions into joints or serous cavities. A few serious 

 accidents and even deaths have followed the antitoxin, 

 and apparently due to the injections. Just what these 

 accidents mean, and whether they are inseparable 

 from the antitoxic serum, we do not know, but they 

 serve to make us properly cautious, and warn us not 

 to accept too readily the assurance that, even under 

 the most extreme precautions of preparation, such an 

 agent is always and wholly free from danger. The 

 good appears to overbalance any evil, but we are not 

 yet sure that there is no possibility of harm. 



Diphtheria is not the only disease in which anti- 

 toxic serum therapy has been applied. The princi- 

 ples of production and use being established, the en- 

 deavor is constantly being made to extend its sphere. 

 Indeed, the tetanus antitoxin preceded that of diph- 

 theria, and in animals experimented upon in the lab- 

 oratory seems to have been equally successful. For 

 obvious reasons, however, its clinical application has 

 not been as extensive nor apparently of as, much value. 

 A tetanus antitoxin is now within the reach of phy- 

 sicians and is certainly worthy of trial, at least in the 

 early stages of lockjaw. According to all who have 



