Antiserum
For example, convalescent serum, passive antibody transfusion from a previous human survivor, used to be the only known effective treatment for ebola infection with a high success rate of 7 out of 8 patients surviving.
Because of Behring's limited financial resources, most horses he selected had been intended for slaughter; however, the usefulness of the animal to others had no influence on the production of serum.
They had to be in perfect medical condition for the immunization, and the quarantine facility ensured that they were free of microbes which could infect the other horses.
A few of the individual horses used for serum production were named, and celebrated for their service to medicine, both human and non-human.
In 1891 Emil Behring saved the life of a young girl with diphtheria by injecting antiserum for the first time in history.
Subsequently, treatment of tetanus, rabies, and snake venom developed, and proactive protective vaccination against diphtheria and other microbial diseases began.
Serum therapy became increasingly prevalent for infectious diseases, and was even used to treat patients during the influenza pandemic in 1918.
Its uses were then quickly expanded to also treat diseases such as polio, measles, pneumococcus, Haemophilus influenza B, and meningococcus.
In the 1920s, Michael Heidelberger and Oswald Avery proved that antibodies were proteins that targeted the capsule of the virus or bacteria.
Antisera were developed to prevent and/or treat diphtheria, tetanus, Hepatitis B, rabies, varicella zoster virus, cytomegalovirus, and botulinum.
In 1984, Milstein and Köhler won a Nobel Prize for their paper that described their method for making murine monoclonal antibodies by immortalizing B cells as hybridomas.
A new technology allowed for heavy and light chain immunoglobulin genes to be amplified from human B cells and cloned into expression vectors.
In 2008, this method was refined with a greater ability to sort cells and clone, which led to the discovery of more human monoclonal antibodies.
In 1996, the FDA approved the use of RSV-IGIV (Respigam), a polyclonal antibody drug to inhibit respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for high-risk newborns.
After two years the product demand began to exceed the supply of plasma and Synagis, the first humanized monoclonal antibody was approved in its place.
Acute conditions may include, but are not limited to Ebola virus, envenomation (e. g. snake bites), and anthrax infection.
In reaction, convalescent blood plasma was considered as a possibility and is used as a treatment option at least for severe cases.
Within a few years, with experience and observation of the horses, a rouleaux formation of the blood sample was placed back into the animal's body.
