HYPERIMMUNE SERUMS IN TREATMENT OF WHOOPING COUGH

Abstract

IN A RECENT publication, Kohn and Fischer¹ outlined the procedures which they considered essential in the treatment of whooping cough based on observations on 3,843 children over the six year period from 1940 to 1945, inclusive. Of these children, 887 were infants under 1 year of age. In the present communication we wish to discuss a group of 201 patients who, during the previous study, from November 1944 to June 1945, inclusive, received the treatment described in that report and in addition were given either human hyperimmune whooping cough serum or a refined rabbit serum. Because of the difficulty of establishing a diagnosis of whooping cough before the occurrence of the typical whoop, only a small number of children (2 per cent) were admitted to the hospital before the whoop was first noted; 77 per cent were admitted during the first week of the whoop and 21 per cent