Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-05-23
SERUMS IN DRIED
FORM PERFECTED
Chemist Freezes Materials
Before Evaporating Off
UnWanted Fluids.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
PHILADELPHIA, May % (N.AN.
A. Human blood serums for treat
ing diseases soon may be available
in every village, thanks to a machine
which preserves them almost indefi-
nitely in dry powder form.
No longer must dog teams or air
planes race madly to distant labora-
tories for precious, perishable liquid
serums to save lives. These things
were spectacular, but not good medi-
cal practice. Too often the serum
arrived too late.
The machine was invented by DR..
Earl w. Flosdorf, young physical
chemist in the University of Pennsyl-
vania bacteriology department, with
the collaboration of the department
head, DR.. Stuart Mudd.
Dry Ice Freezes Serum.
Because chemical changes in Sc
runs are retarded by removal of
water, but ordinary drying methods
also produce chemical changes, their
method is to evaporate the serum
while frozen. Quick freezing with
"dry ice" locks the molecules, the
material is held at ITO degrees below
zero, Fahrenheit, for half hour and
q high vacuum pump renders 1t 1895
per cent dry.
To use the sterile powder, which is
kept in the same vacuum sealed con-
tainer in which it was transformed
from liquid to solid, the physician
pushes a syringe needle through the
rubber stopper, lets distilled water
flow into the bottle and dissolves the
powder. Withdrawing the plunger
of the syringe fills it with serum,
ready for use.
Human serums are used in treat
ment of scarlet fever and certain
streptococcic infections and as pre-
ventiveS against scarlet fever, measles,
chickenpox and mumps. A recent
problem to be attacked with human
serum is influenza. The material to
be brought from the Alaskan Eskimo
influenza epidemic by DR.. Flosdorf's
colleagues, Drs. Horace Petit and
Dickinson Sergeant Pepper, will be
uried to record what caused the out
break and to furnish a possible
weapon against epidemics.
animal SerumS fientlIui.
Animal serums, used in pneumonia,
spinal meningitis, diphtheria, scarlet
fever and lockjaw, have not presented
an acute problem in preservation,
since fresh patches can be obtained.
Serum should not be confused with
vaccine, which is preparation of the
germ causing a disease, produces
mild imitation of that disease and
stimulates formation Of antibodies in
the blood to fight it. Serum is the
liquid part of blood containing these
antibodies, previously produced by a
vaccination against the disease or by
q natural case of 1t.
The advantages of lyophile (dried)
serums over the liquid form are mani
fold. The liquid products are good for
only a year or less and physicians be-
lieve they lose potency. 1t has been
impossible to store up serums from
one epidemic for the next outbreak.
The wastage has been as high as 80
per cent for some snake-bite prepara-
tions.
Small hospitals often have to send
TRANSMISSION cases to large cities be-
cause they do not have tipping serums
to identify the blood group of donor
and recipient.
Viruses, engines and mothers milk
also can be converted by the machine
into economic, easily distributed sterile
powders for future use.
Clinical application Of the dried