Abstract
In a study of the reactions produced in non-febrile patients by intravenous injections of typhoid-paratyphoid vaccine (given therapeutically for ocular inflammations 1 ) we have verified certain findings reported by other workers, and made other observations not hitherto reported. Food was not eaten immediately before and during the period of the investigations, but water was taken freely in uniform amounts every hour. The patients were given from 3 to 11 vaccine injections, on an average of one dose every second or third day. The dosage was so calculated as to produce approximately the same temperature reactions throughout the treatment. This was generally accomplished by doubling the size of the preceding injection. The fever produced by the first dose lasted on an average for about 36 hours; the fever following the second dose generally disappeared in 18 hours; the fever period for subsequent doses covered about 10 or 12 hours.
About 30 minutes after the injection the patient developed a chill and a leucopenia. In several cases the leucopenia dropped as low as 1500, and was characterized by a fall chiefly in the polymorphonuclears. About two hours later the leucocyte count had returned to normal and then began a leucocytosis (mainly polymorphonuclear), in some cases rising as high as 35,000. The fever usually coincided with the leucocytosis and reached its maximum in five to eight hours after the injection, and then gradually fell by lysis.
During the stage of the chill1 and leucopenia there was a perceptible fall in the systolic blood pressure, and an approximately proportionate rise in the diastolic pressure. During the stage of the fever and leucocytosis the original systolic pressure was quite uniformly maintained, but there occurred a marked drop in the diastolic pressure, its low point coinciding with the high point of the fever and leucocytosis.
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