USE OF SERUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 30, 6 February 1928, Page 6

USE OF SERUM.

'"Practitioner" wrote to reassure time parents whose faith in sera has naturally been badly shaken by the Queensland tragedy. The general public cannot be expected to understand the theory of the matter, but let ma give you a few facts: We have it on good authority that the use of sera for diphtheria has not reduced the death rate. Doctors quota statistics to prove that "if given on the first day 5 ' the disease is not so fatal But among those "first day" cases are very many which are not diphtheria. I have myself seen quite a number of cases in which health has been ruined by these injections. My own sister died shortly after one; a healthy young girl died in the same way after the same injection by tie same doctor. One patient who came to me had developed abscess of the brain, another pyremic infection of the wrist. These sera a» in the experimental stage and should be confined by law to proper hospitals. I myself regard it is one of the fads that flourish for a while and then die out. E. S. DUKES.