The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine (late Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine) / with notes on serum therapeutics by members of the staff of the Institute.

  • Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine (late Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine) / with notes on serum therapeutics by members of the staff of the Institute. 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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    animal. One of the means of defence against the invasion of such organisms which is possessed by the animal body is the capacity to manufacture, and set free in the blood stream, substances which combine with the toxins and so render them inert. By habituating a large animal, such as a horse, to the action of the toxin in increasing quantities, some cells or fluids of its body can be thereby so stimulated to produce and put into the blood stream antitoxins in excessive quantity, that the serum of the animal may contain sufficient excess for its useful employment as a remedy for the disease in man or animals. Von Behring must be regarded as the founder of serum therapeutics. In 1890 he, with Kitasato, showed that the blood serum of an animal which had been immunised against tetanus was capable, when injected into other animals, of protecting them not only against poisoning with tetanus toxin but also against infection with living tetanus bacilli. He also proved that, under certain con- ditions, a curative action could be demonstrated in animals 'which already presented symptoms of tetanus infection. Similar, though less striking, results were described in the case of diphtheria. This work of Behring, though an epoch-making one, was not, however, the first suggestion that the serum of immunised animals contained substances which might be utilised for the protection and cure of other animals. Richet and Hericourt, in 1888, believed that they proved that the serum of a dog immunised against staphylococci protected rabbits against that infection. Babes and Lapp, in 1889, showed that the serum of dogs immunised against rabies contained substances which, injected into other dogs, were capable of protecting them against rabies. But though the wrork of both
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