Page 135 - My FlipBook

vaccination. By the use o^ the vaccine virus v^e acquire
artificially immunity from small-pox. The artificially ac-
quired immunities are of this nature. Very much effort is
being made along this line to produce these antitoxins arti-
ficially in sufficient amount and of sufficient purity to im-
munize against various diseases. This idea was perhaps sug-
gested first by the vaccine virus, which was accidentally dis-
covered, as I related in a previous lecture. The work in this
field has been going on for many years. The great savant
of Paris, Pasteur, is responsible, perhaps, for the first deter-
mined efforts along this line in the efforts he made to protect
the cattle of certain parts of Europe from the disease, an-
thrax. Following out the lines known in the vaccine virus, he
tried the cultivation of anthrax in various species of animals,
with the view of modifying its effect or finding a modification
of this particular species of micro-organism, so that it might
be introduced into animals and produce the disease in a
lighter form, as the vaccine virus does, and in that way pro-
tect the animals from the severer disease of anthrax. In this
he was not successful. He then tried cultivation for a long
period of time under conditions unfavorable to the growth.
In this he was more successful. He weakened the power of
the micro-organisms so that he vaccinated many cattle suc-
cessfully and proved the protection from the disease anthrax
very completely. But it was found impracticable to keep up
these cultivations with a sufficient degree of accuracy to
make it really useful, for the anthrax, under conditions fa-
vorable to it, would regain its virulence so quickly that it was
a dangerous experiment. Koch took up the subject and tried
the tuberculin virus, to produce the poison and inoculate with
that in the case of tuberculosis. This also failed, and it was
pointed out by many during this time of experiment that it
would necessarily fail, for the reason that tuberculosis was
not a self-limiting disease, and therefore probably did not
produce a protecting medium, or an antitoxin. In the case
of diphtheria it is being very successful, however, and we are
now using the diphtheria antitoxin successfully in combating
that dread disease among children.
I probably should say a word as to the manner of pro-
ducing this antidote to diphtheria. It is to be hoped that in
the near future we will be able to produce these antitoxins

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