The anti-toxin treatment of diphtheria / by John Glaister.

  • Glaister, John, 1856-1932.
Date:
[1895?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anti-toxin treatment of diphtheria / by John Glaister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    new chemical substances of a poisonous or toxic character, called albumoses or toxines. These toxines, so formed, are absorbed into the blood of the person, and there give rise to the above- mentioned grave symptoms. Hence it is that, while the manu- facturers of the poison or toxine live practically on the surface of the body, the toxine itself is introduced into the blood by absorp- tion. Obviously, then, to overcome the constitutional effects of this toxine is to cure the disease; and hence the treatment has been termed the anti-toxin treatment. We have now reached this stage of discovery—namely, (1) that a bacillus, distinct in character and effect, is the causal factor in the production of the disease; (2) that this bacillus can be isolated from the deposit upon the throat of a diphtheritic patient; (3) that it can be artificially cultivated outside of the body; and (4) that this artificial culture, or even a part of it, when injected into the body of a, healthy animal, will produce both the physical and the constitutional signs of diphtheria. But, it may be asked, how came about the discovery of the principle of the sero-therapeutic treatment *? It had already been established by several observers that if the microbes of certain well-defined diseases—anthrax and others—were cultivated out of the body, and their original virulence weakened, and if such attenuated viri were injected into the bodies of sound animals, such animals would not become the subjects of the virulent form of the disease; that is to say, they had become protected and the expei'ience of the last hundred yeai's in our own country has abundantly shown and proved the protecting influence which vaccinia imparts against smallpox. In this connection various Continental observers had been doing splendid woi-k. Babes, of Buda-Pesth, with Lepp, in July, 1889, had established this principle in re.spect of the treatment of hydrophobia,* and Behring and Kitasato had published in 1890 an article on the immunisation of animals against tetanus ;t but the credit of the application of the principle to the treatment of diphtheria must be given to Professor Jaime Ferran, of Barcelona, who, in a communication to a Spanish journal, of date April, 1890, pointed out and described a safe and practical method of immunising animals against fatal doses of diphtheritic poison, which he himself had successfully employed. * Annalcs de I'lnslitvi Pasteur, July, 1889. + Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschri/t, No. 49, 1890.