Active Immunization Against Tetanus Infection with Tetanus Toxoid

Abstract

Zoeller and Ramon3 demonstrated that when animals are given injections of three doses of tetanus toxoid a certain amount of specific antitoxin appears in their blood serum. That amount of antitoxin is not sufficient to protect the animals against tetanus infection. However, a series of two or three doses serves as a primary stimulus, and on receiving an injury another dose of toxoid will lead to rapid formation of additional antitoxin and afford protection against infection. The response to the second injection of toxoid, which serves as a secondary stimulus, is much greater than that following the primary stimulus. Ramon and Zoeller 4 treated a group of persons with two or three doses of tetanus toxoid to which no alum had been added, and found that four years later the antitoxin content of the blood of these persons ranged from 1/500 to 1/6 unit per cubic centimeter of serum, while a person who had received a secondary stimulus in the form of another dose of toxoid showed 3 units of antitoxin per cubic centimeter. In general the findings of Ramon and Zoeller with plain tetanus toxoid have been supported by studies on groups of persons by Sacquepee,5 by Lincoln and Greenwald 6 and by Sneath 7 and in studies on animals, by Bergey and Etris,8 who treated a group of guinea-pigs