Serums, vaccines and toxines : in treatment and diagnosis / by Wm. Cecil Bosanquet.

  • Bosanquet, W. Cecil (William Cecil), 1866-1941
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Serums, vaccines and toxines : in treatment and diagnosis / by Wm. Cecil Bosanquet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    224/366 (page 212)
    cases may Ije taken to l efer, and it is under this lieadihg that a consideration of the advantages and defects of tliis kinfl of serum may best he set forth. In the lirst place, it must Ixs remembered that cases of infection 'with pyogenic organisms differ from one another in severity almost more than do attacks of any other kind of disease. It is, therefore, practically impo.ssible to form any estimate of the mortality of such cases from statistics, and equally impnicticable to apply the stati.stical method to recorded ca.ses of cure or failure. In cases which appear hopeless, recovery may take place in a most marvellous manner without the use of any specific remedy. If such a “ cure ” is effected in a case treated with serum, there is naturally a tendency to ascribe the good result to the serum. On the other hajid, there are many insbinces in which the infection is so intense and so rapid in its on.set that it would be hopeless to expect any antibacterial serum to pro\'e efficacious. Only a very large collection of ca.ses would thus serve as a basis for a stfitistical calculation, and the nature of the disesuse makes it specially difficult to procure such, as most instances of invasion by pyogenic organisms may be described as “ accidental ”; that is to say, they are sporadic in occurrence and due to inoculation of cocci in wounds, itc., while the state of health of the individual attacked appears to play a greater part in the process than in most other disesuses. We are thus deprived of the aid afforded by the epidemic occurrence of a disease, in which large numbers of cases are met with, under very similar circumstances, often treated in special hospitals, and readily iulapted for collection and tabulation. Finally, many of the series of ca.ses reportt'd are of a very hetero- geneous nature, embracing, for example, j)uerj)eral fever, erysipelas, and cellulitis, the writer aj)plying the results obtained in all of these together to establish the value of the serum in a general way. It will be best V)rieffy to consider the opinions that have been expressed as to .serum- treatment in each of these conditions sejiarately.