Vaccine therapy and Opsonic method of treatment : a short compendium for general practioners, students, and others / by R.W. Allen.

  • Allen, R. W., 1876-1921.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Vaccine therapy and Opsonic method of treatment : a short compendium for general practioners, students, and others / by R.W. Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Pasteur carried on the work initiated by Jenner, and endeavoured in divers directions to induce a prophylaxis by the inoculation, mostly in an attenuated form, of the bacterial agents themselves or products derived from them. Koch, in 1890, however, was the first to attempt the cure of an infection by a specific remedy—viz., of tuberculosis by means of tuberculin. Unfortunately, doses far in excess of those now employed were used, with the result that tuberculin fell into grave disrepute. Denys and Leclef immunized rabbits against strepto- cocci, and showed that the resultant increased phago- cytosis was due not to any changes in the leucocytes, but to an alteration in the serum ; they demonstrated that the leucocytes of the immunized animal, when placed in normal serum, showed no greater phagocytic activity than did normal leucocytes. The studies of Leishman on phagocytosis paved the way for the discoveries of Wright upon the bactericidal agents present in the blood, and in especial of the one to which he gave the name of ' opsonin.' Having devised a means of accurately estimating the opsonic content of the blood, he was thereby enabled to learn the reason of the previous failures of tuberculin, more or less to obviate the attendant danger, and place the opsonic method of treatment of tuberculosis upon a scientific basis. PfeifEer claims priority to Wright for the discovery of the production of immunity by the injection of killed bacterial cultures, while Neufeld and Rimpau (1904), in- dependently of Wright, discovered that the substances in antistreptococcal and antipneumococcal sera favour- ing phagocytosis united with the bacteria and were thermostable. To Wright, hoAvever, is due the entire credit