POISONOUS SERUM

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 9

POISONOUS SERUM

EVIDENCE OF ANALYST BEFORE QUEENSLAND COMMISSION EXTENSIVE EXPERIMENTS IN PROGRESS By Telegbaph.- pfifiss association. Copyright. (Rec. February 15, 9.50 p.m.) Brisbane, February 15. Before the Serum Commission, Mr. Christenson, Analyst to the Queensland Commissioners of Health, gave evidence that in his opinion the danger attending the bulk use of serum should be a matter of common knowledge to any trained doctor, even without a. printed note of warning, and he would be blamable if he kept the serum longer than the time generally accepted as a safe margin. Air. Christenson declared that if the serum in the fatal bottle had been examined it would have been found that the balance had been upset, making the serum a poison. He submitted a statement showing that the content of the toxin and antitoxin serum was prepared in the most correct proportions between two acting agents, and how, if this were upset, the serum became a poison. This could be possible by drawing the serum through a rubber tube, thereby causing expulsion of the air, and encouraging the production of multiplying diphtheria bacteria, and upsetting the equilibrium of the serum. The chairman of the commission stated that the commission was making extensive experiments, whereby it was hoped,, not only to throw light on the deaths, but ensure that the like would never occur again in this or any other country.