AUTOTHERAPY—ITS APPLICATION IN THE TREATMENT 
OF SEPTIC DISEASES IN THE HORSE.* 
By D. J. Mangan, D.V.S., New York, N. Y. 
I hope I will be pardoned for attempting to handle such a 
formidable subject as vaccine therapy; and if my efforts to eluci¬ 
date the action of autogenous pus when administered internally 
in septic diseases in the horse will interest you sufficiently to give 
this treatment a fair trial, I will feel amply repaid for any criti¬ 
cism which my lack of completeness is justly entitled to. 
According to Wright, when an individual recovers spontane¬ 
ously from a bacterial infection, the cure is the result of the 
production of immunizing substances within the body fluids, 
evoked by the setting free of bacteria and their products from 
the focus of infection into the body; to this process Wright gives 
the name of “ Autoinoculation.” 
We all know that opsonins are always present in healthy 
serum, and that phagocytes ingest and destroy invading bacteria, 
but are able to do this only after the bacteria have been acted 
upon by the opsonins. 
Immunity according to this theory depends upon phagocyto¬ 
sis, and phagocytosis depends upon opsonins. Obviously, then, the 
degree of immunity depends upon the opsonic content of the 
blood. Later, it has been shown that the opsonins normally pres¬ 
ent are not the same as those developed in the production of im¬ 
munity to a certain disease; i. e., staphylococcus opsonins, develop¬ 
ing as a result of a staphylococcus infection or resulting from the 
inoculation of a staphylococcus bacterin, prepare only staphy¬ 
lococci for ingestion by the phagocytes. 
Streptococcus opsonins prepare only streptococci, etc. The 
opsonins normally present show no such specific action, but act 
upon all bacteria in much the same way. 
*Read before the June meeting, Veterinary Medical Association of New York City. 
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