New-York tribune., 1899-07-25
TESTING THE SERUM OF TETANUS.

THE exceptional number Of cases OF lock1aw
developed In this country within the last three
weeks have afforded an unforeseen chance FOR
q test Of the serum derived from tetanus
microbes Nearly ninety victims have died or
this painful disease, and a large proportion OF
them were treated with serum. The outcome or
the experiment is discouraging "The Medical
Record" OF this city, said last Saturday: The
"serum treatment had an extensive trial, and
"appears to have been rather unsatisfactory IN
ats results" THE Philadelphia Medical Jour
nar' remarks THE serum treatment has SO far
not proved reliable"
These verdcts must not be regarded as fnal
however They are couched in guarded Ian
guage and represent only hasty Judgment
which later revelations may modify. One can
imagine that something may have been wrong
with the preparation Of the serum or that 1t was
administered too late. At any rate. 1t Is hard
TO reconcile the apparent failures on this side
of the Atlantic with the successes that nave
been reported from Europe To be sure,
tetanus serum Is a comparatively new thing
And it is barely year since the alleged dis
covery was made that the remedy is more efii-
cacious II applied to the spinal cord or brain
than If It is merely injected under the skin. as
is done with the antltoxin of diphtheria.
It must be remembered that the progress made
with this system Of dealing with disease has
been very slow and that all successes have been
partial rather than complete. incubation yields
the best results with smallpox. and with that
disease works as a preventive and not a cura-
tive. Diphtheria comes next In point OF VIC
torious achievement; yet Behring's serum is not
infalible. by any means. Haffkine, who has
experimented with both cholera and the bubonic
plague in India, employs his preparations as
preventives. and makes no pretence that they
insure absolute immunity. Yersln. the French
man who thought he had obtained a curative
agent for the plague. and manufactured 1t by
different method from that OF Haffkine, never
fully established the correctness Of his belief
Last summer doctors attached to the United
States Marine Hospital Service were much in
doubt about the efficacy of the yellow fever
serum of Sanarelli. But this season evidence
has been adduced which Is calculated to
strengthen confidence in 1t. For years Koch and
other bacteriologists have been trying to develop
a remedy out OF the tuberculosis bacillus. UP
10 date they have not accomplished all that they
sought. but they are liable to do so even yet.
AS to the merits Of the hydrophoba serum opin-
ion is still divided. And. while the typhoid
bacillus and the germs Of leprosy and some other
maladles still defy the efforts of man to utilize
them for protective purposes, no one Is war
ranted in declaring that nothing can be done
I'm these directions. Much less would 1t be safe
to say that tetanus never be cured with a.
serum derived from the mcrobe OF that disease.
AS the matter stands to-day. the wisest thing
that can be done after an injury is received
that is liable to produce lockjaw is to call in a
competent physician and let him cleanse and
disinfect the wound. The sooner he Is sum-
moned the better No home treatment is judi
cious in a case Of this kind. 1t would be still
more effective however. to abolish the toy pistol
altogether The ounce Of prevention Is all the
| more desirable where the pound OF cure is not TO
| be had