Reference has already been made to the fact that the toxins were first found in the venom of snakes. Antitoxins to these venoms have been prepared, their value demonstrated ex perimentally on animals, and some slight use of these preparations have been made in the treatment of men bitten by poisonous snakes in India. However these antitoxins like all others are strictly specific and an antitoxin must be prepared for the venom of each species of poisonous snake. The rarity of death from this cause in most parts of the world and the diffi culty of preparing and keeping on hand an antitoxin for the treatment of the bite of each species limits the use of this preparation. Within recent years an antitoxin has been pre pared and used successfully in the treatment of cerebrospinal meningitis. In this instance a definite amount of fluid is withdrawn by punc ture under aseptic precautions from the spinal canal and is replaced by the injection of the antitoxin. Furthermore, it has been demon strated in our own camps during the war that the intravenous injection of this antitoxin is beneficial.
Scientific investigations and experimental studies on animals have given to man almost absolute control of diphtheria and of such enteric diseases as typhoid fever and its allies. Tuberculosis, formerly known as the "Captain of the Hosts of Death,' has been greitly curbed but to-day pneumonia,— or as we should say, the pneumonias,— is the mostly deadly disease that we have to deal with in both military and civil life. The medical profession has recently come to a realization of the fact that etiologic ally there are many forms of pneumonia. In the first place, there are several types of the pneumococcus. In the second place, other or ganisms belonging to the streptococcus and staphylococcus groups may cause pneumonia.
In the Rockefeller Institute there has been pre pared a serum for the treatment of that form of pneumonia due to pneumococcus Type I. Animals have been immunized to this organism and the sera of such animals have been used in the cure of this disease. However, it is not certain at present that such sera have true antitoxic values. Some claim that the sera of animals immunized with this type of pneumo coccus have a bactericidal action, while others think that they only render phagocytic action more effective. In order to be of service in the treatment of pneumonia due to pneumococcus Type I, a relatively large amount of the serum must be used. In other words, a certain de gree of concentration must be reached. The law of multiple proportion which holds good between diphtheria toxin and its antitoxin fails here. Our experience in the World War has demonstrated the great destructiveness of the pneumonias and the lesson that we have learned should lead to the greatest effort toward the discovery of both preventive and curative measures in these diseases. On the battlefields of France the gas bacillus, known also as the Welch bacillus, proved a most distressing and destructive agent. Shortly before the war closed Bull and Pritchett at the Rockefeller In stitute discovered an antitoxin for the poisons of this organism and fully demonstrated its value in experimental animals. The cessation of trench warfare led to a rapid reduction in the number of wounds infected by this organ ism and the time has not yet come for a cor rect estimate of the practical value of the anti toxin. See IMMUNITY; MEDICAL SCIENCE AND THE WORLD WAR; SERUM THERAPY.