TYPHOID 157 



tective serum. It was ascertained also that injections 

 of the serum produced no injurious effects upon a healthy 

 man. M. Chantemesse stated that he had since employed 

 injections of serum in three cases of typhoid fever. The 

 temperature showed a regular fall from the time the first 

 injection was made, and seven days after the commence- 

 ment of the injections all three patients were quite free 

 from fever, and had commenced to convalesce. M. Chan- 

 temesse added that the cases were not yet sufficiently 

 , numerous to permit of any trustworthy conclusion being 

 drawn. 



Loffler and Abel, in a recent paper,* give the details 

 of an investigation upon the specific properties of the pro- 

 tective substances in the blood of animals immunised to 

 B. typhosus and coli communis. For those details we must 

 refer the reader to the original paper; here we can only 

 give their conclusions. They are as follows : (1) By treat- 

 ing dogs with increasing doses of virulent cultures of 

 B. typhosus or B. coli, substances appear in the blood of 

 these animals which possess a specific protective property 

 only against that kind of bacillus which has led to their 

 formation. (2) The serum of normal animals protects 

 against the fatal or lower multiples of the fatal dose of 

 typhoid or coli communis. The strength of the dose sup- 

 . portable bears a certain ratio to the amount of previously 

 injected serum. (3) The specific efficacy of the protecting 

 substances in the blood of previously treated animals first 

 becomes manifest if doses of the particular bacterium are 

 given to the animal to be protected which are multiples 

 of those doses against which normal serum confers im- 

 munity. (4) The specific protective action of the sub- 

 stances also shows itself on injection of a mixture of the 

 bacteria and the serum. (5) Typhoid serum protects 



* Centralhl. f. Baht., Paras, u. Infelct., Bd. xix., 1896, p. 51. 



