The development of diphtheria vaccines.

Beginning with a discussion of the main types of toxin-antitoxin mixtures of diphtheria vaccine, the author of this article goes on to review briefly the early work done on the conversion of toxin to toxoid and the introduction of adjuvants. Among these, special attention is paid to the aluminium compounds. He also discusses the reasons advanced by different workers for the enhanced activity of vaccine under the influence of adjuvants and the difficulties met with in assessing diphtheria vaccine potency.