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
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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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    IViilOlGO-CHlByHGiCAL SCCIETV. OPSONIC INDEX IN HEALTH AND DISEASE 79 Wright suggests, with too large or badly interspaced doses, but with infinitesimally small ones, so that negative and positive phases are alike of short duration, though full amplitude ; or, finally, it may be constantly below unity, if such auto-inoculations be prevented. In tubercular infections of the eyeball, uncomplicated by tuberculosis elsewhere, the index is usually high. Thus, a case of tubercular iritis had an index of 13, a case of keratitis an index of 1-5. A third case, in which tubercular keratitis and iritis were complicated by tubercular cervical and mesenteric glands and by peri- tonitis, had, on the other hand, an index of 0-4. As will be mentioned later, all eye infections, whether acute or chronic, are usually attended by high opsonic index. The explanation of this is, I think, fairly obvious. The circulation of the eyeball is so poor and the infection so localized that the very minute doses of toxin absorbed act exactly hke repeated injections of infinitesimally small doses of tubercuhn — so small that the protective mechanism of the body is not exhausted. That chronic cases do not get well with this high index is, again, prob- ably due to the poor circulation, and consequently to the small amount of opsonin brought to the part. Eyre has observed that broken-down phlyctenules may be starting-points for tuberculosis of the conjunctiva, while Wright, in his earHer experiments, noticed that occasionally phlyctenules developed in patients under- going inoculations with tuberculin. Nias and Paton^ accordingly investigated the tuberculo-opsonic index in a series of twenty cases of early phlyctenular conjunc- tivitis, employing five cases of other forms of conjunc- tivitis as controls. They found striking variations from