Evening star., 1942-06-10
Way Found 10 Guard
Unborn Child Against
Whooping Cough
Expectont Mothers,
Voccinoted, Tronsfer
Protection in Blood
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Staff Correspondent.


ATLANTIC CITY. N. j.. June 10.
Babies can be immunized against
vhooping cough before they are
born.
This discovery. reported to the
American Medical Association here
today, may 60 far toward eliminat-
ing one of the worst diseases of
early infancy. 1t kills more during
the first two years Of life than
measles, diphtheria, poliomyelitis
and scarlet fever combined.
Drs. Philip Cohen and Samuel j.
Scadron of New York told of exper-
imerts in which they vaccinated
expectant mothers with a potent
whooping cough vaccine. Anti
bodies are formed in the mothers
blood and transferred to the blood
of the unborn child, which cannot
form them itself.
Against several of the diseases Of
childhood it is known that babies
are born with a passive immunity.
This lasts about six months. the
period when the hold on life Is most
precarious.
Vaccination Of Babies Fails.
Efforts In the past to vaccinate
babies themselves shortly after birth
have not succeeded. Apparently the
blood of infants is a poor producer
of antibodies of any kind.
With the method reported today
the problem still to be studied Is the
length of the immunity conferred
by the mother.
The seriousness OF vhooping
cough in early infancy was stressed
in another report by DIR. Louis A.
Lurie of Cincinnati. He and an as
sociate found that in a group OF So
children who recovered from the
disease in the first year Of life, more
than half showed later changes In
behavior, intellectual and PERSONAL
ity. which could be traced directly to
the illness.
"A striking and characteristic
finding in many of the cases." DR..
Lurie said, was delay in the time
Of walking and talking. Two chill
dren, following the attack Of whoop-
ing cough, stopped walking and
talking in which they had made
some progress before. In nine cases
there were associated convulsions.
"Of six cases on whom brain-wave
tracings were made, five were def
nitely abnormal The frequent oc-
currence of nerve deafness and
various forms of speech disturbance
is especially worthy of mention.
Twenty-four of the children rated
below normal in intelligence. In
all probability the changes are due
to definite organic injuries produced
in the brain during the whooping
cough attack"
Change in Theory Of Attack.
It may be necessary to change
generally accepted ideas OF the
mechanism Of whooping cough, 1t
was reported by Drs. Jesse G. M:
Bullowa and Janet D. Alderman OF
New York Hitherto 1t has been
generally believed that the disease
was caused by the direct action OF
certain bacteria and that efforts
to protect against it must be di-
rected against this organism.
The new studies indicate that 1t
Is a poisonous substance excreted
by the bacteria that causes the dis
ease. They involved 135 children,
100 of whom were given whooping
cough toxoid. Toxoid is the toxin
of a bacteria treated with formalin
to destroy its poisonous character
but which still has the ability to
promote the formation of anti-toxin
In the blood
The other IS were given whooping
cough vaccine. preparation OF
killed or weakened organisms that |
produce. active immunization. The
investigators found that both the
toxoid and vaccines were capable Of |
increasing the anti-toxin in the
blood of children. The use OF the
toxoid alone protected group Of
children against the disease.