Word: toxins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Standard tetanus anti-toxin treatment such as might be given in mass quantities to air raid casualties, would be extremely dangerous to the 40 per cent of the student body who suffer from slight or serious allergies, the Hygiene Department stated, as it advised such people to take advantage of a newly developed tetanus toxoid serum...
People who have inherited hay fever or asthma, who have taken pneumonia serum, or who have suffered previously from the old tetanus anti-toxin, may become gravely ill if given a fresh dose, and anyone who has had the treatment less than five years ago is also liable to a reaction...
...between doses, and is already compulsory in the armed forces. The old treatment was only administered after the wound was received, but the new toxoid is given to build up a slight immunity and then another injection at the time of the accident insures security. Unlike the tetanus anti-toxin the new toxoid can be repeated almost immediately if the need arises...
...Warfield Monroe Firor of Johns Hopkins has long worried about this paradox. About 18 months ago he got the hunch that the tetanus toxin which causes the first stage of the disease must be different from the poison which causes the second fatal stage. To test his hunch he injected both small and large amounts of tetanus toxin directly into the spinal cords of more than 60 dogs. The injections were always followed by muscular paroxysms and death, even though 100 times the neutralizing dose of antitoxin was in the bloodstream and even though some doses of the poison were...
Last week Dr. Firor told members of the Society of University Surgeons, meeting at Rochester, N. Y., the conclusions of his research. As long as tetanus toxin has not had time to enter the spinal cord, he said, tetanus antitoxin can neutralize the poison and check the disease. But once toxin enters the cord, it somehow becomes transformed into a new poison. "The new substance is not attacked by the present antitoxin," said Dr. Firor. In answer to questions of enthusiastic colleagues, he said that he will shortly try to prepare a second antitoxin which will cure the final stages...