Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/885

* SERRANO Y DOMINGUEZ. 805 SERUM THERAPY. and at the licud of tliu icvolutioiiary forces de- feated tlic royal troops at Aleoloa (Septoiiihcr '28tli). Isabella lli'd to Kraiiiv and Serrano was declared by the Cortes Ke^'ent of the kinj;doin in June, lS(i!), having acted in the interval as chief of tlic provisional (Jovernnient. I'nder King Aniadeus lie was at tlio head of two short-lived Ministries (January-July, IS71; June 1872). and carried on an active caiupaifjn against the t'arl- ists (1872). Serrano looked with disfavor upon the establishment of the lvei)ublie, foUowinj; the abdication of Aniadeus. and upon the overthrow of the Government by (leneral Pavia in January, 1874. became chief of the executive, holdiuf,' ollice till the accession of Alphonso XII. He died in Madrid. SERRET, sc-ra', .Jo.sEPii Alfred (1819-85). A Freiuh mathematician,, born in Paris, and educated in the Ecolo Polytechniiiue. In 1861 he became ]irofessor at the Coll^l;e de France. Ser- reVs niathematical text-books are very valuable. The following list comprises his most important treatises: Coiirs d'algrhre supiriciire (4th ed., 1879) ; I'raitc de trigonometric (7th ed., 1888) ; Elements de triyanomctrie (1853); ('ours de caleul differential et integral (4th ed., 1894). Serret also edited the works of Lagrange (7 vols., 1807-92) and Lacroix's' Cn7ci/?ws (1881). SERTO'RIXJS, QiiXTUS. A Roman com- mander in the latter years of the Republic. He fought, H.c. 105. in the disastrous battle on the Rhone, in which the Roman proconsul, Quintus Servilius Cfepio, was defeated by the Cinibri and Teutones, and took part in the splendid vic- tory at Aquae Sextia> (now Aix), B.C. 102, where Marius annihilated the Cimbri and Teutones, and on the breaking out of the sanguinary struggle between the party of the nobles under Sulla (q.v.) and the popular party headed by JIarius (q.v. ), B.C. 88, lie espoused the cause of the latter. No other ilarian general held out so long or so successfully as he against the victorious oli- garchy. He fought in conjunction with Cinna the battle at the Colline Gate (is.c. 87) which placed Rome at the mercy of the Marians, hut he had no hand in the bloody massacres that followed. He got his own troops together, and slew 4000 of the rtiifianly slaves whom !Marius was per- mitting to plunder and ravish at will through the city. On the return of Sulla from the East (B.C. S.'i). Sertorius withdrew into Etruria, and thence he went to Spain, where he continued the struggle in an independent fashion. At the invi- tation of the Lusitanians, he collected an army composed of natives, Libyans, and Romans, and after a time became the virtual monarch of the whole country. In B.C. 70 Pompeius was sent against Sertorius. but the latter drove him over the Iberus (Ebro) with heav^' loss; nor was the campaign of the following year (B.C. 75) more favorable. Finally Perjierna and other Roman officers of the ilarian party who had fled to Sertorius in B.C. 77 assassinated him in his own tent in B.C. 72. Phitarch wrote Sertorius's Life and Corneille made him the subject of a tragedy. SERXTM: (Lat., whey, serum). See Blood; Serxm Therapy. SERTJM THERAPY. As stated in the arti- cle on iMMtxn'Y. the accepted theory of im- munity is the antitoxin theory, in accordance with which theory it is believed that artificial inmiunity may be a<uired through the introduc- tion of all<'niialed culture^ of microiirganisiiis intn the animal boily. I5y this nieans the body is ren- dered iiiimuiie lo virulent forniH of these organ- isms, through the antitoxins developeil in the blood. The use of blood serum containing anti- toxins in the treatnieiil or prevention of diHcaito is called serum therapy. Dr. Xicolas Lambadarios. of the Uliivoniity of .thens, has published a volume on the Ho'runi therapy, organotherapy, antirabie and aiitl leprous treatment of tin' old (Jreek pliyNieians. (ialen used the Mesh of the viper's ImkIv ai an antivcnene. Mithriil;it<-s fortilied himself by taking all (he known antidotes, and i-xperimenti-d also upon coiKhnuied criminals, linally sin- I- ing in rendering himself immune to snake bile. For the latter purpose he took the blood of ani mals which fed on venomous snakes. AttaliiH, King of Pergainon. .Vndromachus, Xero's chief physician, and (Jalen used similar antidotes. The discovery by Pasteur in 1857 of the bacterial origin of fermentation led to the discovery of dif- ferent antitoxins and the establishment of serum therapy in these latter days. nLooo-SEHiM. Till' germicidal action of blood- serum has been tested upon cultures of staphylo- cocci, streptococci, typhoid bacilli, and colon bacilli. Blood-serum from healthy persons show* practically no germicidal power over the staphy- lococcus or streptococcus, but a marked geriiii cidal aclion on the typhoid bacillus. Ulooil of cacheclic peo])Ie siill'cring from various diseases also exhibits marked germicidal power over the typhoid and colon bacilli. Hlooil removed from persons in the death agony or a few hours after death is strongly germicidal against typhoid and colon bacilli. I)ut not actively so toward staphy- lococcus or streptococcus. In prejiaring serum for therapeutic use the same general methoils are employed in various productions. The following description of the preparation of anti-pneumococcic serum will serve as an example of the process: AxTl-PxErMoroccr.s Serim. Violent bouillon cultures of pneuniococci (the bacteria causative of pneumonia) are injected into a horse, after the organisms in the culture have been killed by prolonged heating at 00" C. After the animal has obtained a certain amount of tolerance to these injections, living cultures of pneiimococci are injected in increasing quantities until such injections fail to show constitutional symptoms. Rabbits arc infecled with living pni'umoeoeci meanwhile. From time to time the horse serum is injected into these rabbits. Where the serum of the horse is found by experiment to protect rabbits so that infection does not occur after injection of living pneiimococci it is withdrauTi from the hor.se for use, preserved with an anti- septic and bottled. DilTcring reports have been made as to the efficacy <if this scrum. It was used first in 1890 by Pane and Dc Renzi of Naples. Conflicting reports have been received regarding the results; but it is believed by suc- cessful experimenters in N':iples. Munich, and Berlin that if not deteriorated by age, if used early and in large doses, it will always ameliorate if not cure lobar pneumonia. .TIVENENE. br. .lbcrt Calmette. of the Pas- teur Institute at Lille. France, devised a serum obtained from animals inoculated with rattle- snake poison, termed antivcnene. This is not a