THE USE OF PROFESSOR LOEWENSTEIN'S OINTMENT FOR ACTIVE IMMUNIZATION AGAINST DIPHTHERIA

American medical literature is full of reports concerning the use of toxin-antitoxin mixtures for active immunization against diphtheria. During the last few years reports concerning the use of toxoid have also appeared in the American literature (Ramon and Illingworth,¹ Zingher,² Fitzgerald,³ Weinfeld and Cooperstock,⁴ Schwartz and Janney,⁵ and Dick and Dick⁶). We shall now report briefly our results obtained in active immunization of forty-seven children with Professor Loewenstein's ointment.

In 1928, Professor Loewenstein⁷ produced an ointment containing the diphtheria toxin modified by the addition of formaldehyde and dead diphtheria bacilli. The ointment thus differed from the toxoid not only in its consistency, but in the fact that it contained dead diphtheria bacilli. Professor Loewenstein believe that a true diphtheria immunization must be antibacillary as well as antitoxic. He rubbed this ointment into the skin of a number of guinea-pigs and later gave them