Show Dr Fishbein's Health Talks B By Dr DR DL MORRIS FISHBEIN Nowadays if it any anyone one of your chit ehU dren is exposed to an infectious disease dis dis- case ease like typhoid fever r or diphtheria he has a much greater chance of at eS eScaping es caping it than heretofore because doctors have developed means for specific prevention of such auch ailments Basically these methods are the production of an antitoxin or su substance sub stance which reacts against the poison that has accumulated in the body as es a result of the infection When there is danger of lockjaw for tor example the physician may Inject inject in In- one or two thousand units of antitoxin In case lockjaw has ha already developed developed de de- very large doses does pi of the antitoxin anti toxin must be given Some Seine authorities authorities ties recommend as many as I units unit injected directly into the blood and md repeated in irs from 12 to 24 hours At the same time the victim maybe may maybe maybe be given additional antitoxin by injection in into the muscles and in certain tam tain cases injections may be given directly into the spinal fluid a a a aThe The germ that causes cause diphtheria also produces a poison which can be injected into a horse causing the horse to produce antitoxin in its blood More recently it has been found possible in the prevention of diphtheria to stimulate the body of ot the human being to produce Its It own It would be dangerous however to inject the diphtheria poison directly di Into the human bod body Therefore Therefore There There- fore the modern is to use a mixture of the toxin with This can cnn be injected safely and will cause the body to develop the stances a Moreover it has been found possible possible pos pos- sible to devitalize the poison to some extent by addin adding antiseptic sub stances such as SiS formaldehyde When this Is b done the preparation is called A still sUll later method js is th the combination of the and the antitoxin Once diphtheria occurs in a human being the condition is controlled in inthe inthe the vast majority of cases by Injecting injecting inject Inject- in ing antitoxin in large doses dose early in inthe inthe inthe the disease a a a. a For scarlet fever there als also arc preparations of the toxin and the antitoxin anti anti- toxin used in much the same manner man manS ner ncr a. a as in diphtheria Serums Scrums also have been developed for erysipelas and meningitis In certain tain thin other forms of ot infectious diseases dis dis' diseases eases as for example in measles and in infantile paralysis it is customary cus tomary to use the blood of a person who has recently recovered from the disease This blood in most instances contains developed by that person perron for the infectious ones A vaccine also is used in lion tion and sometimes in the treatment of disease It consists of ot the dead bodies of or the germs that cause the disease Vaccines are used particularly particularly in prevention of typhoid fever and whooping cough The vaccines have not been found of great creat value in treatment of typhoid fever but recently new vaccines developed de de- d for whooping cough are found to have considerable value |