The Early Years

The careful manufacture of diphtheria antitoxin and other preparations involved, among other processes, examining the products for sterility (top) and potency (bottom). An incident in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri, proved how dire were the consequences of ignoring such procedures.

Diphtheria antitoxin contaminated with tetanus bacilli killed nearly a dozen children in that city, leading to the passage in 1902 of the federal Biologics Control Act, which required that manufacturers be licensed and their processes be approved by the Public Health Service.

From the Antitoxin Laboratory's earliest days, its preparations were praised for their high quality and its methods followed by other laboratories in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Early Years...

• Introduction
• Antitoxin Laboratory - Yates Street, Albany, New York
• Manufacturing of the diphtheria antitoxin
• Examining the products for sterility and potency
• Production pipeline ended in the laboratory's shipping room
• Single site for all laboratory activities
• Recruiting personnel to staff the expanded laboratory
• New York City's Quarantine Station
• Wish for a farm was granted in May, 1913
• Media production facility
• Dr. Augustus B. Wadsworth and staff