Antitoxin

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For bacterially-produced antitoxins, see toxin-antitoxin system.
A vintage 1895 vial of diphtheria antitoxin.

An antitoxin is an

infectious disease. This procedure involves injecting an animal with a safe amount of a particular toxin. The animal's body then makes the antitoxin needed to neutralize the toxin. Later, blood is withdrawn from the animal. When the antitoxin is obtained from the blood, it is purified and injected into a human or other animal, inducing temporary passive immunity. To prevent serum sickness
, it is often best to use an antitoxin obtained from the same species (e.g. use human antitoxin to treat humans).

Most antitoxin preparations are prepared from donors with high titers of antibody against the toxin, making them

hyperimmune globulins
.

History of antitoxin

Antitoxins to

Emil Adolf von Behring and his colleagues from 1890 onwards. The use of diphtheria antitoxin for the treatment of diphtheria was regarded by The Lancet as the "most important advance of the [19th] Century in the medical treatment of acute infectious disease".[1][2]

In 1888, Behring was sent to Berlin for a brief service at the Academy for Military Medicine. In 1889, he joined the Institute for Hygiene of the

serum therapy and his theory of antitoxins.[3]

Early 1887, in Bonn, Behring had found that the serum of tetanus-immune white rats contained a substance that neutralized anthrax bacilli. He recognized this as the source of their "resistance".

blood-serum therapy.[3] On 11 December, another report, signed by Behring, discussed blood-serum therapy not only in the treatment of tetanus, but also in diphtheria.[citation needed
]

When

vegetable poisons led to the formation of antitoxins in an organism, Behring's theory was confirmed.[3]

An antitoxin for scarlet fever was developed in 1924, simultaneously by Raymond Dochez and Gladys and George Frederick Dick.[4][5]

21st-century serum therapy

See also:
Hyperimmune globulin

See also

References

  1. PMC 5050965
    .
  2. PMID 4581249
    .
  3. ^ a b c d "Emil von Behring Facts, information, pictures". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  4. PMID 20315893
    .
  5. PMID 18011363
    .

External links
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