"The medical report of the French army states that since the
introduction of the serum-treatment of diphtheria, the mortality
among cases of that disease had fallen from 11 per cent. to 6
per cent." (_Brit. Med. Journ._, 3rd September 1898.)
"Professor Krönlein (Zürich) exhibited statistical tables, showing
that the prevalence of diphtheria in the canton of Zürich had been
nearly uniform during the past fifteen years; and that the mortality
rapidly decreased as soon as antitoxic serum was used on a somewhat
larger scale. In his clinic, all the patients were examined
bacteriologically, and serum was administered in every case of
diphtheria without exception. Of 1336 cases treated before the
serum-period, 554 = 39.4 per cent. died; whilst during the
serum-period there were 55 deaths among 437 cases = 12 per cent. In
cases of tracheotomy, the death-rates before and during the
serum-period were 66 and 38.8 per cent. respectively." (_Lancet_, 7th
May 1898, Report of German Surgical Congress at Berlin.)
"Dr. Kármán was entrusted by the Hungarian Government with the task of
instituting measures for preventing the spread of diphtheria in a
village and its neighbourhood. As general hygienic regulations
accomplished nothing, he tried preventive inoculation.... Among 114
children thus treated, there was during the next two months no case of
diphtheria, although the disease was prevalent in the village up to
the date at which inoculation commenced, and continued to rage in the
surrounding villages afterwards. During those two months, only one
case of diphtheria appeared in the village, and that was in an
uninoculated child; while, in the previous five months, 18.3 per cent.
of the village children had been attacked, of whom eight died, six not
having been treated with serum. Considering the wretched hygienic
condition of the village, the harmlessness of preventive inoculations,
and the continuance of the disease in the neighbouring villages, where
diphtheria-vaccination was not carried out, the extraordinary value of
the inoculations, in the prophylaxis of diphtheria, can hardly be
denied." (_Brit. Med. Journ._, 16th January 1897.)
"The most striking confirmation of the value of antitoxin has
been afforded where the supply ran short during an epidemic. In
Baginsky's clinic, the interruption of the serum-treatment
promptly raised the mortality from 15.6 to 48.4 per cent."
(_Brit. Med. Journ._, 20th October 1895.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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