Encyclopedia of practical medicine.

  • Nothnagel, Hermann, 1841-1905.
Date:
1901-08
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Encyclopedia of practical medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    three and even four attacks, as also Quincke' and Goth ^ 1 case each in which there had been three attacks. With regard to the intensity of the second and, in general, of any subsequent attack of typhoid fever, this need not, according to my experience, be less than that of the first attack. On the contrary, there have been among my cases some in which the first attack was mild, while the second was so severe as to terminate fatally. This is in accord, on the whole, with the every-day experience that relapses and recrudescences may be more severe and more protracted than the pri- maiy attack. In this respect also there is a certain contrast with the behavior of the acute exanthemata, as a type of which variola may asrain be mentioned. It is known that second attacks of this disease are almost invariably much less severe than the first attack. All of the foregoing facts have been learned from and are based upon empiric observation. With increasmg laiowledge of the vital activities of the pathogenic micro-organisms, a better insight into the nature of immimity has been gradually obtamed both theoretically and experimentally. Although certain definite and in some respects con- clusive results have been reached with regard to a number of acute infectious diseases (tetanus, diphtheria), and which have even borne brilliant fruit from a practical point of view, this aspect of the question with regard to typhoid fever is still imsettled. It may be considered as demonstrated m this connection (R. Stern ^) that the blood-serum of convalescents from typhoid fever continues to possess for some tune the property of protectmg experunental animals, especially mice, from the deleterious effects of typhoid cultures. It has also been possible to immunize animals to the action of the tjTDhoid-bacillus by means of filtered or imfiltered typhoid bouillon-cultures; and it has also been found that the blood-serum of such inununized animals is m turn capable of immunizmg other predisposed animals. By means of an elaborate series of experiments, Pfeiffer and Kolle* have also shown that the blood-seriun of typhoid convalescents contains substances which, when the serum hi very small amounts, together with a culture of the typhoid-bacillus, is injected mto the abdommal cavity of a gumea-pig, have marked bactericidal properties. These substances are the specific anti-bodies, corresponding to those described by Pfeiffer m immune cholera-serum. They« later showed that similar anti-bodies could be produced in the serum of normal men by iiijcct- ' Dmtsch. Arch.f. klin. Med., Bd. xxxix. Inaug. Diss., Kiel, 1886 ' Deutsch. med. Woch., 1892, No. 37. * Zcit. f. Hyg., Bd. xxi. ^ Deutsch. med. Woch., Nov. 12, 1896.