THE INFLUENCE OF ANTITOXIN UPON POST- 
DIPHTHERITIC PARALYSIS." 
By M. J. Rosenau, 
Passed Assistant Surgeon, Director Hygienic Laboratory, U. S. 
Public Health and Marine- Hospital Service, 
and 
JoHx F. Axderson, 
Passed Assistant Surgeon, Assistant Director Hygienic Laboratory, 
U. S. Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Diphtheria, under various names, can be traced back to remote 
antiquit}^; but the specific contagious disease which we now call 
diphtheria was not differentiated until 1821, when Bretonneau^ 
clearly described its clinical features and gave to it its present name. 
However, a definite relation between faucial attacks and subsequent 
paral 3 ^sis was demonstrated almost one hundred }"ears before. 
Chomel,^^ dealing with the epidemic of Paris in 1743, Ghisi,^ with 
that at Cremona in 1749, and Samuel Bard ^ with that of Xew York 
in 1789, described cases of paralysis following sore throat. It is 
a surprising fact that nearh" a centur}^ elapsed before the remarkable 
observations of these three writers were confirmed b}^ subsequent 
investigators. 
Bretonneau/ in 1855, recorded an instance of post-diphtheritic 
paralysis in the case of Horpin, a surgeon of the hospital at Tours. 
Manuscript submitted for publication June 14, 1907. 
& Bretonneau; (a) Communication to the French Academy, 1821. (b) Des inflam- 
mations speciales des tissus muqueux, et en particulier, de la diphterite, ou inflam- 
mation pelliculaire. Paris, Crevot, 1826, 540 p., illus. 8°. 
c These historical data are taken largely from J. D. Rolleston’s excellent ‘‘Clinical 
observations on diphtheritic paralysis,” The Practitioner, London, vol. 73, 1904, pp. 
597-623, 794-824. 
t^Ghisi: Lettere mediche. Cremona, 1749. 
« Bard, Samuel; An inquiry into the nature, cause and cure of the anginasuffocativa, 
etc. Trans. Phd. Soc., Phila., 1789. 
/ Fifth memoir on diphtheria, 1855, Xew Sydenham Society, p. 182. 
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