Adjuvant to Antibiotic Therapy in Staphylococcal Infections. a Preliminary Investigation
Mcewen, W.W.
Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey 61: 221-225
1964
ISSN/ISBN: 0025-7524 PMID: 14145918 Document Number: 8216
Despite the intervention of certain unforeseen anomalies agglutination, precipitin and complement fixation tests have demonstrated that the administration by the oral route of an antigenic lysate of staphylococci (phage-type 80) to guinea-pigs provokes the formation of antibodies in the blood serum. This is confirmed by mouse-protection tests against a challenge dose of viable organisms in which 83 per cent of mice receiving the serum of treated guinea-pigs survived compared with 25 per cent survival rate of mice receiving no serum. A "natural immunity" to staphylococci was demonstrated in the control guinea-pigs, the serum of which protected 42 per cent of the mice similarly challenged. Of the mice actively immunised with the staphylococcal lysate by the oral route, 83 per cent survived the challenge dose of viable staphylococci as compared to the 25 per cent referred to above. Daily sub-lingual administration of the staphylococcal lysate to a human subject over a period of 30 days provoked a rise in agglutination titre of his serum from a "threshold" titre of 1 to 160 to 1 to 640 by the 18th day, reaching 1 to 1440 by the 56th day.
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