The vexed question of the diagnosis of diphtheria is now a thing of the past.
In the 1920s, we got a vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis, tuberculosis, and tetanus.
Thus, to mention examples, diphtheria toxin produces inflammatory oedema which may be followed by necrosis; dead tubercle bacilli give rise to a tubercle-like nodule, &c. Furthermore, a bacillus may give rise to more than one toxic body, either as stages in one process of change or as distinct products.
Thus the organisms of suppuration, tubercle, glanders, diphtheria, typhoid fever, cholera, tetanus, and others were identified, and their relationship to the individual diseases established.
Thus paralysis following diphtheria is in all probability due to a different toxin from that which causes the acute symptoms of poisoning or possibly to a modification of it sometimes formed in specially large amount.