Word: antitoxins
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...with great anger and great love-anger for the stupidity and venality of the powerful, love for the weakness of the weak. In their testimony, the town fathers incriminate themselves: the rich doctor objects that Marcy is taking money from the purses of honest physicians with her free toxin-antitoxin shots; the minister pompously complains of Marcy's interfering when she tells of tubercular prisoners in the penitentiary. The voices of the poor exalt Marcy: it is recalled that she went more than 20 miles through waist-deep snow to tend the dying child of a miner when...
Without much hope, the doctors started all the standard treatments: a hefty shot of tetanus antitoxin (to counteract the poison released by the bacteria in the festering wound), penicillin to reduce the spread of infection, sedatives to calm the anguished patient, and muscle relaxants to ease his stiffening, contorted body. They cleaned the infected wound and put Douma in an oxygen tent (because the nerve center that controls breathing is especially susceptible to tetanus poison). But it seemed to be too late. During the next 24 hours, Douma suffered several convulsions and muscle spasms. His back arched like...
Chancy Shots. In similar danger is the do-it-yourselfer who has gashed himself with a dirty hack saw. Since too few people ever have a tetanus booster, and fewer can remember when, his doctor often recommends a shot of antitoxin, designed for emergency use on nonvaccinated patients...
This, says Milwaukee's Dr. H. William Bardenwerper, is probably the chanciest thing the doctor could do. Of 2,000,000 tetanus antitoxin shots given annually in the U.S., an estimated 300,000 to 600,000 result in serum sickness, some in severe, possibly crippling serum neuritis. Antitoxin may cause 20 or more deaths a year...
...risk is nearly always needless, says Dr. Bardenwerper. Although tetanus (lockjaw) itself can be deadly, it can best be guarded against with a toxoid shot, which is made from killed tetanus bacteria and, unlike the antitoxin, contains no animal protein and virtually never causes serious reactions. The public, complains Dr. Bardenwerper, has had too little prodding from doctors on the importance of vaccination with tetanus toxoid, and still less on the need for booster shots every four or five years. Even if the patient has had no recent shots, there is generally no need for antitoxin: before tetanus can develop...