Infection, immunity and serum therapy : in relation to the infectious diseases of man / by H.T. Ricketts.

  • Howard Taylor Ricketts
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Infection, immunity and serum therapy : in relation to the infectious diseases of man / by H.T. Ricketts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    1890) with the familiar result of the production of the specific antitoxins. Other investigations in this direction soon showed the independence of the antibacterial and the antitoxic properties of serums. With these facts in hand, the vigor with which investigations have been pushed may be readily imagined. The hope naturally prevailed that phy- sicians might become the masters of all infectious diseases, through the possession of specific anti- bacterial and antitoxic serums. But failures, with which we are only too familiar, met the attempts to produce adequate antiserums for many diseases. Nevertheless these failures, through stimulation to closer study, have resulted in the accumulation of much additional knowledge concerning the pathogenic properties of different bacteria,, the nature of the immune serums and the various pro- tective factors of the bodv. Ehrlich has evolved a new theory of immunity from facts which were discovered in his laboratory, the side-chain theory, which it is the purpose to utilize in the interpretation of many reactions which will come up for consideration. W'^right in England, Neufeld in Germany, and Hektoen in America more recently have led in a revival of interest in phagocytosis as a factor in natural and acquired immunit}^, with the result that there can no longer exist any doubt that pha- gocytosis plays an important role in protection against and in recovery from many infections. Thus the opsonins of Wright, and the bacterio- tropic substances of Neufeld, have served to bridge any chasm—never a real chasm—which seemed to exist between the so-called humoral and cellular
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