What is antitoxin?
Antitoxin is a specialized antibody or a group of antibodies that has the ability to neutralize a specific toxic substance, a type of toxin produced exclusively by living organisms. Like its counterpart, antitoxin is also produced in living organisms, which include plants, animals and humans. Antitoxin activity is similar to the activity of the vaccine in that the body's immune system is stimulated to produce specific antitoxin in response to the presence of a small amount of corresponding toxin. However, antitoxins are also effective against the toxic effects of bacteria and other microorganisms, such as Clostridium botulinum and corynebacterium diphteriae , which cause botulism and sinter. In addition, the application of antitoxin is not limited to affect and can be used as a preventive measure against disease in an otherwise healthy organism.
prevention of diseases using natural antITOXins are common in the treatment of livestock such as cows, goats and sheep. This practice most often applies to animals that have not previously been vaccinated against the disease, or in the case of an unknown immunization record of the animal. Moreover, the most common antibody used for this purpose is in the breeding of tetanus. The conditions under which this antitoxin may be administered in addition to the already quoted, include injuries, where the wound is suspected of receiving into contact with contaminated soil or after a tail or castration. In humans, however, the transfer of antitoxins from one individual is much less practical and full of potential risk.
This leads to thinking about how counter -active antitoxin Cbbe made in favor of a person, especially who was infected with toxin. Fortunately, the design of nature not only allows antitoxins to be produced internally by living creatures, but also allows them to convert from one to another. The hostess of the choice is usually a horse, which is injected by the substance in the gradually growing increments. It does notEpojojojojs the animal. Instead, the horse produces appropriate antibodies, which can then be donated to human beings to initiate the so -called passive immunity against the invasive toxin.
But there is one objection to this process. Browse of antibody proteins from horse to humans can cause a disease known as serum disease, also known as immune complex diseases. Symptoms usually occur within one to three weeks and include nausea, joint pain, swelling of lymph nodes and redness around the injection site. This occurs when the immune complexes that consist of antibodies and toxin antigens bound to each other accumulate and collect in the bloodstream and organs and induce an inflammatory response. However, if a person suffers from impaired immunity, the body focuses and destroys these deposits in a relatively short time, allowing complete recovery.