Quantitative Studies on Diphtheria Prophylactic and Some Considerations on the Assessment of Antigenicity

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Abstract
Summary: Quantitative studies have been performed on the immunity provoked by injecting purified diphtheria toxoid activated with a suspension of aluminium phosphate. Aluminium phosphate has been shown to enhance very markedly the immunising potency of the toxoid, when this is not adsorbed but merely mixed with the former; however complete adsorption must be carried out if the maximum activating effect is desired. The assay procedure used in these experiments, which consisted in dividing into subgroups the animals receiving identical inoculations and titrating the antitoxin titre of the pooled sera of each subgroup, has proved suitable for a precise statistical analysis. The usefulness of this method is emphasized and some aspects of the problem of the standardization of diphtheria prophylactics are discussed. The most satisfactory method of standardization of an adsorbed toxoid is, for the time being, one based on the efficacy, in guinea-pigs, of a single injection compared with that of a single injection of an adsorbed purified toxoid used as a standard. Although it is deemed difficult at the present time to establish a unit of potency, it seems expedient to base the estimate on the responses to both a large and a small dose of prophylactic, for the purpose of providing a more complete assessment of its antigenicity.
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