The Future of Immunological Drugs

Abstract

This year in November it will be 100 years since Behring and Kitasato published their work about achieving diphtheria immunity and tetanus immunity in animals in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift [1]. This was the beginning of the development and production of immunological drugs, which until today consist mainly of drugs containing antibodies and vaccines. Already at that time, very impressive figures existed in connection with vaccination against smallpox showing the convincing prophylactic efficacy of vaccine. The first statistical statement about the effectiveness of vaccination could be made more than 100 years ago after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1871. In the unvaccinated French army there were 125 000 cases of smallpox, and 23 000 of those infected died. The vaccinated German army on the other hand recorded only 495 deaths from smallpox. As a result of this experience, the public demanded obligatory smallpox vaccination, and support for this demand came from numerous life-insurance companies which had lost 14% of their insured persons from smallpox.