STUDIES ON THE PROPHYLACTIC TREATMENT OF RABIES

Abstract
More than 70 years have passed since the prophylactic treatment of rabies with dried attenuated vaccine was first reported by L. Pasteur. But the treatment of rabies to-day still remaines on the same therapeutic principles of giving active immunity by repeated injections of an emulsion prepared of the nervetissue of animals infected with fixed virus before the street virus invades into and proliferates in the central nerve-tissue of the injured. Thus, clinicians are still troubled with the postvaccinal paralysis. Moreover, as it was detected by Nitsch and Dodero, the vaccination is useless or even harmful as it shortens the incubation period when the injury is severe.On the other hand, in nearly all instances, the locality infected and the time of infection are quite evident indicating the availability of immune serum. Following the report by Babes and Lepp in 1889 on a dog survived the subdural injection of street virus after it had received 6 successive daily injections of immune serum obtained from a dog immunized with rabies vaccine, numerous reports have been published on rabies immune serum treatment some stating that it is highly benefitlal and the others useless, But most of those studies were not satisfactory on the points that the number of the animals used was too small, the neutralizing antibody titer of immune serum used was not precisely determined, the method of infection and the dosage used were not adequate etc. While, A. Hoyet, et al. in 1935 statistically proved the effectiveness of immune serum against the experimental infection attempted on mice with fixed virus. In the year 1945, K. Habel, being based on the experimental findings of animal protection tests (guinea pigs, mice and monkeys) by the use of rabbit immune serum and street virus or fixed virus as challenge virus, stated that the protective effect was observed on the animals received immune serum and practically no difference was observed in the prophylactic effect between the vaccination started immediately after and that started 3 to 6 days after serum injection, and he concluded that the first application of immune serum and then to start vaccination upon positive diagnosis of the suspicious animal are quite sufficient for the protection of the injured.Following the above, in 1950, H. Koplowski reported that the inoculation of an adequate amount of rabbit or goat hyper immune serum on hamsters and guinea pigs within 24 to 72 hours after infection with the street virus recovered from the salivatry gland of a rabid dog, could lower the number of fatal cases, and that the combined application of this immune serum and Semple's vaccine showed no antagonism nor synergism of the antigen and antibody, and further, he recommended the use of this combined therapy presenting 2 evidences of successful treatment both injured by positively rabid animals.In our country, the incidence rate of rabies has remarkably increased since the end of the last world war and a considerable number of postvaccinal paralysis cases have occurred. Thus, efforts have been excised on the improvements of the vaccine as well as on the prophylactic use of immune serum. As the result of animal experiment, in which rabbit immune serum highly immunized with fixed virus was used, the application of immune serum within 6 hours after infection was statistically proved to protect mice infected with fixed virus. The experiment in which street virus was used as infecting virus also confirmed the above finding.Reported in the following are the details of similar experiments carried out by using immune serum obtained from the horses highly immunized with the fixed virus. Further, the prophylactic effect of the treatment with horse hyperimmune serum alone was compared with that of the combined treatment of the same immune serum and the vaccine inactiveted by ultra-violet irradiation.

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