For modern people, diphtheria is a remote and rare disease, not to mention ordinary people, even senior professors of pediatrics, few dare to say that they have seen diphtheria with their own eyes. Our most recent memory of it is probably a vaccine called DPT when we were young because we were afraid of pain and cried and refused to be vaccinated.
However, just over a century ago, diphtheria was an extremely terrifying and common killer of children. Every year, countless children all over the world die prematurely, and many adults are not immune. After contracting this disease, the severely ill patients will have difficulty breathing or suffocate due to the gray-white pseudomembrane produced in the pharynx, so the Spanish call it "the strangler" (el garatillo, "the strangler"), while the British do Call it "croup" (croup) or "Boulogne sore throat" (Yes, even if the disease is named, the people of corrupt countries will never give up insulting the law).
The terrible diphtheria is recorded in many medical and literary works. In the novel "Cranford" by the famous British female writer Elizabeth Gaskell in the 19th century , there is such a passage: The vivacious and lovely little boy at the priest's house is still participating in the afternoon. At the garden party, he was killed by the treacherous Croup at night.
However, it is difficult for us to know for sure whether these terrible diseases of the old days are really diphtheria or other infectious diseases of the throat. It was not until 1826 that the French physician Pierre Bretonneau described the characteristics of the disease in detail, and diphtheria has since acquired its unique name (diphthérite, later translated into English diphtheria).
Time came to the second half of the 19th century. In this great era, bacteriologists represented by French scientist Louis Pasteur and German scientist Robert Koch established the theory of bacteria. They exposed one after another in the microscope and petri dish the originally "invisible" bacteria killer, which gave the medical community a new understanding of the cause of the disease. In 1883, Koch’s students Edwin Klebs and Fredrick Loeffler found a thin, slightly curved, thin film in the pseudomembrane of the patient’s throat. Different kinds of coryneform bacteria, this is the pathogen of diphtheria-Corynebacterium diphtheriae.
Lefler further proposed a conjecture: Bacillus invaded the patient's nasopharynx, but it can trigger a serious systemic reaction. Is it possible that it produces toxins into the blood and affects the whole body? Soon after, Alexandre Yersin of the Pasteur Institute and others proved this hypothesis.
In 1890, Emil Adolf von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato of the Koch Laboratory tried to make a "diphtheria antitoxin": they injected diphtheria toxin into experimental animals, Stimulates the production of an anti-diphtheria toxin substance in the animal's blood. However, it is not easy to produce a large amount of antitoxin serum that is enough to cure diseases and save people. Scientists need to find large and abundant animals. After trying many large animals such as cows and donkeys, they found that horses reacted best after toxin injection. , They usually don’t die from toxin injection, but just show low fever. As a result, many sanitation machines have built horse breeding sheds and equipped with bloodletting facilities. The poor horses were punctured and blood sampled again and again, and the horse serum containing diphtheria antitoxin was extracted and injected into the bodies of children and big friends who were short of breath and were eagerly waiting for treatment.
In 1901, von Behring won the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to the treatment and immunity of diphtheria. Unfortunately, due to the lack of an effective vaccine, the number of people infected with diphtheria is still large. In 1921, more than 200,000 people in the United States were infected with diphtheria, of which more than 15,000 died. Diphtheria is the third leading cause of death among children in England and Wales.
In 1925, there was an outbreak of diphtheria in Noam, a small town in Alaska. The closest city to Nome, where the life-saving diphtheria serum is stored, is 955 miles away. The road was blocked by heavy snow, and the diphtheria serum could only be delivered by train 674 miles from the town of Nome. Togo and its dog buddies stepped forward, and the sled team completed the delivery.
Medical scientists have not stopped fighting. In 1913, von Behring developed a mixture of diphtheria toxin and antitoxin "vaccine". After injection of this mixture, people will have mild symptoms of infection, but the body can produce it under stimulation. Antibodies against Diphtheria bacillus. In 1926, the British immunologist Alexander Glenny optimized the diphtheria vaccine (toxoid). In the 1930s, diphtheria toxoid was gradually promoted in various countries for immunization. Due to the widespread use of diphtheria toxoid, global diphtheria cases have been greatly reduced since the 1980s. Between 1980 and 2000, the total number of reported cases of diphtheria worldwide decreased by >90%. Today, with the exception of occasional diphtheria cases in a few countries, diphtheria infections in most regions have been relatively well prevented and controlled.
At the end of the year 2019, which is doomed to be unstable, I would like to commemorate and thank the doctors, horses and dogs who saved us from illness. I hope that in the new year, humans and animals can be treated kindly, and the little kindness radiated by each of us can make the world so much better...
【Waiguai Bagua 1】
According to the records of some articles on the history of science, in the process of developing anti-diphtheria serum, von Behring had said that it was good to share the invention rights with Paul Ehrlich, another scientist in the Koch laboratory, Ehrlich. Xi did make a lot of contributions, but then von Behring fooled Ehrlich to give up half of his "invention rights" and promised that he would fund Ehrlich to build a laboratory...Finally, von Behring Not only did he win the Nobel Prize, he also made a lot of money because of the diphtheria serum, but he promised that Ehrlich's laboratory has not been seen for a long time... The two also broke up because of other things.
As a rigid and hardcore scientist, Comrade Paul Ehrlich did not complain about being discouraged, but continued to engage in immunological research. Seven years later, he went to win a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. After a few years, he Developed the anti-syphilis drug Arsenic, and also made a lot of money... Hardcore is like this, I am really convinced.
【Waiguai Bagua 2】
During the Republic of China, the diphtheria epidemic in China was also very fierce. The author has not verified who produced the first diphtheria toxoid vaccine in China, but it is certain that in the 1940s, the Central Epidemic Prevention Department under the leadership of Tang Feifan, a famous bacteriologist in my country, was able to successfully produce diphtheria toxoid. Tang Feifan is also a scientist who I am really convinced. He developed China’s first penicillin, rabies vaccine, vaccinia vaccine... and the first person in the world to isolate Chlamydia trachomatis. It’s a pity that he was in 1958 because of unspeakable reasons. Committed suicide...
Portal: "Tang Feifan Documentary"
[This article is modified from a contract, please do not reprint without permission, thank you]
references:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1901/behring/article/
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1901/behring/biographical/
LOUIS H. RODDIS, A Short History of Diphtheria. Military Medicine[J].1957(1): 51-53
TONSE NK RAJU. Emil Adolf von Behring and serum therapy for diphtheria. Acta Pædiatrica[J]. 2006(95): 258-259.
https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/paul-ehrlich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togo_(dog)
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