The value of antitoxin in the treatment of diphtheria.

  • Research Defence Society (Great Britain)
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The value of antitoxin in the treatment of diphtheria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Defence Society, May, 1908. THE VAIiJE OF ANTITOXIN IN THE •TREATMENT OF dip'htheria. It is sometimes said, by the opponents of all experiments on animals, that these experiments have had no great result in the saving of life; and, by way of example, they point to the antitoxin treatment of diphtheria, denying that this has done anything to diminish the dangers of the disease, or even going so far as to say that diphtheria is often aggravated by the administration of antitoxin. In support of this statement, they bring forward a number of statistics, obtained from the annual reports of the Registrar-General, shewing that the death-rate from diphtheria in proportion to the whole population has risen rather than fallen since the introduction of antitoxin in 1894. The following extract from a recent magazine article will serve to illustrate their line of reasoning:— “ Average diphtheria death-rate per million persons living “ as recorded in the returns of the Registrar-General for the “ last thirty years in quinquennial periods ;— 1st Quinquennial Period 1876-1880 ... 121 2nd „ n 1881-1885 • . 156 3rd 1886-1890 . . 170 4th 1891-1895 . . 252 5th >> 1896-1900 . . 272 6th „ n 1901-1905 ... 204