Serum Therapy

a mode of treatment of certain diseases by injection of modified blood serum of man or some other animal. There are, it may be said, two purposes and, hence, two branches of the subject. The first purpose is to render the person immune, that is to say, proof against attack; the second is to destroy the bacterium or other organism and counteract the toxin, the poison, produced by it. Dr. Jenner's vaccination against smallpox and Pasteur's treatment of rabies may be cited as examples of treatment designed to produce immunity. It is believed that progress has been made in preventing anthrax, cholera, plague, typhoid, and tuberculosis. In the second branch of serum therapy the design is to cure a disease already well seated. The most positive results have been secured in the treatment of diphtheria. Physicians now rely almost wholly on the injection of anti-toxin. This anti-toxin is developed in the body of a horse, that is to say, the serum of a horse inoculated by a physician is injected in the circulatory system of the patient where it sets up an action that counteracts the toxin or poison of the diphtheritic bacteria that swarm in the blood of the patient. Students of serum therapy claim that progress has been made in the cure of lockjaw, dysentery, pneumonia, and blood-poisoning. See Vaccination; Cholera; Typhoid; Diphtheria, etc.