ANTITOXINS 



97 



during the last two or three decades, but a vast 

 amount still remains to be done. We have only- 

 touched the fringe of the explanation of the difficult 

 problems of immunity, of the extraordinary variations 

 in virulence and effects of the same organism, and 

 of the important question of cure in, and prevention 

 of, infective diseases ; while the chemistry of the 

 products of bacterial activity is but in its infancy." 

 (Hewlett, Manual of Bacteriology, 1898.) 



The difficulties of bacteriology are written across 

 every page of the text-books : above all, the diffi- 

 culties of attenuating or intensifying the virulence 

 of bacteria, and of immunising animals, and of 

 procuring from them an immunising serum of exact 

 and constant strength. Every antitoxin is the 

 outcome of an immeasurable expenditure of hard 

 international work, unsurpassed in all science for the 

 fineness of its methods and the closeness of its 

 arguments. 



It has been said, by those who are opposed to 

 all experiments on animals, that the virtue of all 

 antitoxins is due to the carbolic acid mixed with 

 some of them. They give the following wonderful 

 explanation in one of their journals : — 



"We are often asked if there is any germ of 

 truth at all in the serum treatment of disease. 

 There is ; and it is as well that our readers should 

 know exactly what it is. In infectious diseases, a 

 proportion of the delicate blood-corpuscles die and 

 become waste matter in the blood. If the patient 

 be of good constitution, his system soon eliminates 

 this dead matter. Now, all serums being very 



G 



