ABSTRACT
Passive immunization arose as a concept in 1666 with Lower and King's early transfusion experiments described by Pepys as .. mending of bad blood by borrowing from a better body," as related by Wedgwood and Riese (1). Beginning in the 19th century, many studies on the potential of immunoglobulins for use in the treatment of infectious diseases in humans were carried out for tetanus, diphtheria, scarlet fever, botulism, and snake venoms (2-7). During the early 20th century, antisera for prevention of tetanus infections in the U.S., meningococcus in Germany, and rubeola were investigated (3,6,8,9). However, the first large-scale demand for blood products that could be stored, transported, and administered quickly was created by World War II (10). Using procedures for large-scale separation of plasma productions and production of stabilized fractions by Cohn and co-workers (11-13), and with the discovery that antibodies were contained in the gammaglobulin fraction (14,15), the modem era of plasma fractionation and commercial immunoglobulin production began.
