This is a very important matter. I make the following claims: that the antitoxin, being itself a most powerful poison, may be and often is the direct cause of paralysis, or of death due to heart-failure. That diphtheria treated with antitoxin may be and often is followed by paralysis, heart-failure, or lifelong invalidism of some kind after the patient has apparently recovered from the disease. That these undesirable after-effects of diphtheria do not occur when the disease is treated by natural methods, but that they are the result of the antitoxin treatment and of its suppressive effect upon. the disease.
To prove my claims, I submit the following facts: I have in my possession clippings from newspapers from different parts of the country stating that death had followed the administration of the diphtheria antitoxin for prevention or "immunization," that is, where the individual had been in good health at the time the antitoxin was given.
Several cases of this kind created quite a sensation in Germany about fifteen years ago. Dr. Robert Langerhans, superintendent of the Moabit Hospital in Berlin, a strong advocate of the antitoxin treatment and also of vaccination, had been one of a committee of three appointed by the municipal government of the German metropolis to investigate the efficiency of the diphtheria antitoxin. As a result of his findings, he had recommended its free distribution to the poor of the City of Berlin.
Not long thereafter the doctor's cook was suddenly taken ill with severe pains in the throat and sent to the hospital. It was thought to be a case of diphtheria, and the doctor, to protect his little son, one and one-half years old, against possible infection, administered an injection of antitoxin. Shortly afterward the child developed symptoms of blood-poisoning and died of heart-failure within twenty-four hours.
It is customary in Germany to insert a death-notice in one of the local newspapers and to invite the friends of the family to the funeral. In his announcement in the columns of the "Lokalanzeiger," Dr. Langerhans stated explicitly that his little son had died after an injection of diphtheria antitoxin for immunization.
Another similar case is that of Dr. Pistor, a prominent Berlin physician, whose little daughter contracted a slight inflammation of the throat. The child was given an injection of antitoxin, and this was followed by a severe and protracted illness.
Very significant, in this connection, are certain utterances of Dr.
William Osler in his "Practice of Medicine." He says, on page 150:
" Of the sequelae of diphtheria, paralysis is by far the most important. This can be experimentally produced in animals by the inoculation of the toxic material produced by the bacilli. [This is the active principle in the antitoxin. Author's note] The paralysis occurs in a variable proportion of the cases, ranging from 10 to 15 and even to 20 per cent. It is strictly a sequel of the disease [of the disease treated with antitoxin?—Author's note], coming on usually in the second or third week of convalescence. . . . It may follow very mild cases; indeed, the local lesion may be so trifling that the onset of the paralysis alone calls attention to the true nature of the disease. . . .
"The disease is a toxic neuritis, due to the absorption of the poison. . . .
"Of the local paralysis the most common is that which affects the palate. . . . Of other local forms perhaps the most common are paralysis of the eye muscles. . . . Heart symptoms are not uncommon. . . . Heart-failure and fatal syncope (death) may occur at the height of the disease or during convalescence, even as late as the sixth or seventh week after apparent recovery."