PREVENTIVE USE OF ANTITOXIN 125 



of Dr Karman, just quoted, is one of the earliest 

 instances of this preventive use of antitoxin : other 

 instances, of equal importance, are given in the 

 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, December 

 1897, an d March 1898; and in the Lancet, 2nd 

 April 1898, and 28th January 1899. A summary 

 of more recent experiences of this preventive use 

 of antitoxin in different countries is given by Dr 

 Wilcox of New York, and Dr Stevens of Phila- 

 delphia, in Gould's Year-Book for 1902 : — 



" At a meeting of the Societe de Pediatrie 

 (Paris), held June 1901, a resolution was adopted 

 affirming that preventive inoculations present no 

 serious dangers, and confer immunity in the great 

 majority of cases for some weeks, and recommend- 

 ing their employment in children's institutions and 

 in families in which scientific surveillance cannot be 

 exercised. Netter stated that he had collected 

 32,484 observations (cases) of prophylactic injec- 

 tions, and after eliminating cases in which the 

 disease developed in less than twenty-four hours 

 after injection, or more than thirty days after, there 

 were 6 per cent, of failures. On the other hand, 

 the author stated that he had recently made ninety 

 preventive injections with but 2.17 per cent, of 

 failures. Potter reports a series of twenty-four 

 families in which preventive injections were used. 

 Only one case of diphtheria occurred. In another 

 series of cases, in which no prophylactic injections 

 were given, the disease occurred secondarily in one- 

 third of the houses, and one-sixth of the inmates 

 contracted the disease, in spite of the fact that, a 

 large number of the primary cases were removed 

 to the hospital. Blake reports a series of thirty- 



