Word: antitoxine
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...needs is an immediate booster. But if he has never had toxoid, or is unconscious and cannot answer questions, the doctor has a difficult choice. He can give toxoid, which takes a while to build up immunity and may work too slowly. Or he can give tetanus antitoxin, which confers brief but prompt immunity. Trouble is, the antitoxin, almost always prepared from the blood of horses, carries a heavy risk of serum sickness, which can be as deadly as tetanus...
Expensive Escape. Every year, said Dr. Christensen, about 500,000 Americans get a shot of horse-serum antitoxin. Some 25,000 get a bad reaction, and about 20 die. Tetanus experts see an escape from such dangers-at a price. Two West Coast companies, Cutter Laboratories and Hyland Laboratories, are extracting tetanus antibody from human volunteers in the form of immune globulin. But the price of one shot of human serum extract ranges from $7.50 to $11.50, whereas the horse serum costs less than $2.00. And even where price is no problem, an overriding handicap remains: human globulin is likely...
...meat can cause violent abdominal cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, liver damage, intense thirst, convulsions, delirium, and death in from five to ten days. Concerned, Paris officials dispatched special champignon sherlocks to inspect incoming truckloads of wild mushrooms at the central market, and the Pasteur Institute stepped up shipments of an antitoxin serum...
...diabetic who has a "shock" reaction to his insulin is likely to be mistaken for a drunk; he may die in the lockup before anybody realizes what is wrong. A person who is allergic to penicillin or tetanus antitoxin may die within minutes after an injection which is routinely given to accident victims. Heart patients on a precise digitalis dosage and arthritics on steroid hormones are in serious danger if their medication is suddenly stopped. Atropine, or similar drugs, given to glaucoma patients may contribute to blindness...
Today more than 100,000 Americans are wearing a lifesaving bracelet designed to prevent such accidents. It was made originally for Linda Collins of Turlock, Calif., who was so hypersensitive to tetanus antitoxin serum that the tiny amount used in a scratch test* after she cut her finger one day in 1956 made her collapse in convulsions. Her father, Surgeon Marion Collins, figured that a full dose of antitoxin would have killed Linda; he decided that for future protection his daughter should wear a dog tag proclaiming her allergy. Linda talked him into making the tag into a silver bracelet...