SERPUKHOV, sĕr-poo-Hof', or SERPUCHOW, Russia, a town in the government of Moscow, on the Nara River, 57 miles southwest of the city of Moscow, comprising three divisions. One of these, the Fort, is enclosed by walls, now in ruins. An ancient cathedral is the only building worth noting. Agriculture is an important industry, and there are manufactures of wool, cotton, leather, paper, chemicals, etc. An active trade with the interior is carried on, especially over the Oka River.

SERPULA, a tube-making marine chatopod worm (see CHATOPODA), which often lives and reproduces its tubes in such close proximity over considerable areas as to form, with the cemented fragments of coral, sea-shells, sand, etc.; caught among its entwined tubes may be large masses of rock. Such are to be seen on the coast of Florida.

SERRA DA ESTRELLA, sār'rä dä ĕsträlyä, Portugal, in the province of Beira, is the highest range of the country, attaining an altitude of 6,540 feet. It belongs to the Guadarramas system, and is a continuation of the Gata Range in Spain, terminating in the Serra de Lousão. Numerous lakes, some of which are warm, occur in the ridge, and the rivers Condicira and Unhaes form fine cascades. The surrounding scenery is remarkably picturesque.

SERRA DO MAR, doo mär, a coastal range of mountains running east by north from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

SERRANIDÆ, a family of acanthropterygian bony fishes typified by the sea-bass (q.v.). The body is generally rather short and heavy, slightly compressed, with moderate or large head and covered with usually ctenoid scales. The mouth is usually large and is provided with numerous teeth all of one kind arranged in broad bands on the vomer and palatine bones as well as on the jaws. The fins are well developed and the dorsal spines usually large and strong but variable in number. Sometimes the dorsal and caudal fins are furnished with filaments or streamer-like appendages. The swimbladder is usually comparatively small and attached to the body walls. This is a large family of carnivorous fishes, including about 70 genera and more than 400 species, almost all of which are marine and especially abundant in tropical waters. They are closely related to the Percida and, like that family, include a large number of valuable food-fishes. In North American waters no less than 28 genera and 90 species are found, almost all of which are good and a number very important food-fishes. Among them may be mentioned, in addition to the sea-bass, the striped bass, white perch, yellow bass, jew-fish, groupers and squirrel-fish,

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most of which are described elsewhere in this work. Consult Jordan and Evermann, 'The Serranidæ, Bulletin No. 8 (United States Fish Commission, Washington 1890).

SERRANO Y DOMINGUEZ, sĕr-rä'nō ē do-men'gath, Francisco, DUKE DE LA TORRE, Spanish statesman: b. Anjonilla, Andalusia, 18 Sept. 1810; d. Madrid, Spain, 26 Nov. 1885. He entered the Military College in 1822, became an ensign in 1825 and served in the coast guard until 1833, but after the death of Ferdinand VII he gained favor with Queen Isabella and espoused the cause of the child queen Isabella II, against the Carlists. He played an active part in the troublous politics of Isabella's reign, at times holding high offices in the administration and again at variance with the ministry. For implication in the insurrection of Saragossa in 1854 he was exiled but in June returned and took part in the successful revolution of Espartero and O'Donnell. In 1857 he was sent as Ambassador to Paris, and in 1860 he went to Cuba as captain-general. In 1866, after the overthrow of O'Donnell's government, Serrano was banished, but in 1868 returned, assisted in overthrowing the queen's army and forced her to leave the country. He then acted as regent until the accession of Amadeus of Savoy in 1870. He was successful in his warfare against the Carlists both in 1872 and in 1874, and during much of the latter year was at the head of the government. He resigned the monarchy into the hands of Alfonso XII, in 1875, but continued active in political life, and in 1883 was appointed Ambassador to France.

SERRELL, Edward Wellmann, American civil and military engineer: b. 5 Nov. 1826; d. New York City, 25 April 1906. He entered the engineering profession and was employed on the Erie Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Panama survey, the Niagara bridge, the Hoosac Tunnel and other large engineering works. He was an assistant to the chief of topographical engineers, United States of America; entered the Federal engineer corps as a colonel in the Civil War; was at the capture of Fort Wagner and devised the "Swamp Angel" battery that shelled Charleston, S. C. He became chief engineer for the Department of the South, and was in 126 actions, being brevetted brigadier-general. He suggested improvements in guns and gun-carriages, and issued some 50 reports railroads and bridges.

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SERRES, Dominic, Engish marine artist: b. Auch, Gascony, 1722; d. London, 1793. He is said to have been a nephew of the archbishop of Rheims and was intended for the Church, but this not suiting his taste he ran away from home and became a sailor, eventually becoming master of a Spanish trading vessel. Being taken prisoner by a British warship, he was carried to England, where he afterward resided. Having had some instruction in drawing, he began life in his adopted country as a painter of naval pieces, for which the wars of the period furnished subjects. Serres became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1765 and exhibited with them for two years. On the establishment of the Royal Academy in 1768 he was chosen one of the foundation members. Among the pictures exhibited by Serres at the

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Royal Academy were 'The Siege at Fort Royal, Martinique (1769), and (The Engagement between the Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough with Paul Jones and his Squadron' (1780). In 1792 he was appointed librarian to the academy, and also marine painter to George III.

SERRES, John Thomas, English marine artist: b. London, December 1759; d. there, 28 Dec. 1825. He was the elder son of Dominic Serres (q.v.), and followed his father's profession. In 1780 he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy. In 1790 he went to Italy to further study his art. In 1793 he succeeded his father as marine painter to the king and was also appointed marine draftsman to the Admiralty. In 1801 he published a translation of The Little Sea-Torch, a guide for coasting ships, and in 1805 his 'Liber Nauticus,' or instructor in the art of marine drawing. He had married in 1791, and although legally separated from his wife in 1804, her pretensions to be the Princess Oliver of Cumberland involved him in many difficulties throughout the latter part of his career.

SERTORIUS, sér-to'ri-us, Quintus, Roman general: b. Nursia, Italy, about the end of the 2d century B.C.; d. Asia Minor, 72 B.C. He served with distinction under Marius against the Teutones and in Spain, and held the office of quæstor in Cisalpine Gaul, but becoming embroiled in a quarrel with Marius, who had opposed his election as consul, he fled to Spain, where he collected a force to oppose the army of subjugation sent by Sulla to subdue that country. But the means of Sertorius were unequal to the conflict, and embarking at New Carthage he passed into Africa and successfully commanded the subjects of Mauritania, who were in revolt against their king. This success gained him the confidence of the Lusitanians, who placed him at the head of the large force with which they were opposing Sulla, and Sertorius withstood for a number of years a much superior force of Romans successively commanded by Annius, Metallus Pius and Pompey. But Sertorius loved Rome and fought with reluctance against its forces. He, therefore, now accepted the offer of Mithridates, 3,000 talents and 40 ships of war, to ally himself with him in an effort to recover Bithynia and Cappadocia. Sertorius received the sum and was making preparations to push the war, when he was slain through the treachery of Perperna, who had joined him two years before and who now assassinated him at a feast.

SERUM THERAPY, a mode of treatment of disease by means of the modified blood serum of man or other animal. It is one of the subdivisions of therapeutics (q.v.) and in its more scientific details is of distinctly modern development. In its early and crude forms, however, serum therapy is of very great antiquity. Serum therapy is employed both for its protective power as well as for its curative aid. Inasmuch as the gradual growth of knowledge concerning the protective power of blood serum has been in large part an offshoot of the study of bacterial poisons it is usual at the present time to include under the study of scrum therapy a number of related subjects particularly the effects of bacteria toxins in disease, hence they will be included in this ac

count. It is related that King Mithridates knew that by taking small doses of snake poison he might render himself immune to larger doses and in this old, well-recognized principle one sees the early shadowings of the principle of isotherapy-the principle now so fully recognized that after all the body tissues are the best defense against infectious diseases. The exact details of all the protective processes are not as yet known, but enough have been discovered to place serum therapy on a sound basis. It has been known for a long time that many infectious diseases rarely attack a person a second time. This is characteristically true, for instance, in measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough. It is less true for diphtheria, for typhoid fever, for pneumonia. When the discovery of bacteria made it evident that many of these diseases were due to these low plants, it was then shown that injections of the bacteria caused the disease and that a certain grade of immunity was produced. Following this it was learned that it was not necessary to inject the bacteria themselves to get symptoms of the disease, but that the injection of the filtered products of their growth, that is, their toxins, might cause the same phenomena, and finally it was shown that as a result of the injections, either of the bacteria, or of their dead bodies, or of their filtered toxins, certain changes took place in the blood and that new substances were formed in the blood which in different ways counteracted the effects of the injections; finally it was a logical step to develop these anti-bodies as they have been called in the blood serum of another animal and use this serum in the treatment of the particular disease in man. This is the simple explanation as applied in the serum therapy, say of diphtheria. After the success of the antidiphtheritic serum became established it was thought that all of the infectious diseases would be immediately conquered by an application of the same principle but in practically all instances it was found that whereas the principle worked out very definitely for diphtheria, it did not apply to other infectious diseases as directly, and the results while at times seemingly excellent, at other times were very disappointing. This disparity between the good success in diphtheria with antitoxic sera and the lack of results in other infections served to draw attention to the fact that the protective mechanisms in the blood serum were much more complicated than was at first thought. A new line of study was opened when it was shown that in some instances following the use of protective sera, the bodies of injected bacteria resulted from the use of the serum. Thus bacteriolysis were found to be destroyed, that is, in addition to a chemical antidote, antitoxic serum, a bacteria-destroying serum became a possibility. It is highly probable that in tuberculosis this bacteriolytic action of the blood serum is constantly at work. At about the same time, or even previously, the peculiar power that certain blood sera possessed in agglutinating or causing bacteria to clump up and hang together was observed in typhoid fever. This led to the discovery that certain specific substances, called agglutinins, were present in certain instances and that these agglutinins were protective devices elaborated by the body in

its struggle with infectious micro-organisms. This peculiar property of agglutinating bacteria has developed one of the most reliable of tests the so-called Widal reaction for the detection of typhoid fever. Thus far practical agglutinating sera have not been devised. Agglutination seems to be an active factor in immunity rather than a passive one. As shown in our article on IMMUNITY two distinct phases are present, an active and a passive immunity, and at the present time it is the endeavor of serum therapy to bring into defensive action as many of the factors as possible. Thus by injecting into the human body living bacteria, which have had their virulence modified, either by growing them in oxygen or by attenuation through growth in certain animals, or by subjection to high temperatures, or by growth in weak antiseptic media, a certain type of active immunity may be conferred. This principle is made use of in Haffkine's anti-cholera injections. In the sera used in combating the plague and in immunization against typhoid, injections of the dead bodies of bacteria are practised. Finally active immunity may be induced by the injections of filtered bacterial toxins. These three types of treatment apply the principle of prevention, however. They are meant to so enhance the protective agencies of the blood serum that infection shall not take place. They are not in any sense of particular service after the disease has once begun. They are only the first stages in the development of a curative blood scrum. As illustrations of these methods the following may be mentioned: (1) Pasteur's preventive inoculations against anthrax in sheep-highly successful. The immunity lasts about a year (see ANTHRAX). (2) Jenner's vaccination against smallpox (see SMALLPOX and VACCINATION). (3) Haffkine's anti-cholera inoculations. Large bodies of men in India have been inoculated first by an attenuated virus, then by a strong virus. The results thus far are not conclusive, but they are encouraging (see CHOLERA). (4) Haffkine's anti-plague inoculations. (See PLague, BUBONIC). In this the dead bacteria of the plague and their toxins are injected. These are prepared in a specified manner. According to recent reports of the Indian Commission the results are highly satisfactory, but better methods for standardizing the dosage are desirable. Other methods of combating the plague after it has attacked the body are in yogue. These belong to the section on passive immunity modes of treatment. Yersin and Lustig have developed these sera. (5) Wright's anti-typhoid inoculations. In these dead bacteria and their toxins are also used. The results reported from time to time are encouraging. In India of 4,502 soldiers inoculated only about 1 per cent contracted the disease, whereas of 25,000 uninoculated soldiers in the same station 2.5 per cent contracted the disease. In the Spanish War typhoid fever was a scourge, in the recent World War the use of antityphoid vaccinations practically wiped out the disease, as effectively as the smallpox vaccinations wiped out that disease. (See TYPHOID FEVER). (6) Pasteur's method of treatment of hydrophobia is an application of these same principles. In this the body is slowly immunized by using modified virus grown in a special medium, the spinal cord of dogs or rab

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bits, and before the actual infection takes place, immunity is effected during the incubation period of the disease. (See HYDROPHOBIA). (7) Maragliano's anti-tuberculosis vaccination. This is one of the recent

(1904) efforts to confer immunity in this dread disease. The investigator after a number of years of experiment both in laboratories and in hospitals believes that it is possible to produce a specific therapy for tuberculosis. He has been able to immunize lower animals against the disease and his methods offer much hope for successful human immunization. The main principle of Maragliano's therapy is to create a peripheral focus of tuberculosis inflammation without living tubercle bacilli and bring about by this means the active production of defensive materials. These defensive materials are antitoxins, bacteriolysins and agglutinins. It is yet too early to pronounce upon Maragliano's success, but his studies have served to reawaken a keen interest in the serum treatment of this lisease which by reason of many failures had almost become despondent. The good work done by Trudeau in this country long ago began to bear fruit under many different forms, although as yet no secure immunization against tuberculosis has been accomplished. Anti-meninococcus serum for cerebro-spinal meningitis has been effective and a possible serum for poliomyelitis is now being perfected (1919). It is needless to point out that all of these advances have come through the honest workers in the medical profession. Secret commercial enterprises are notoriously unreliable and border on quackery if not criminality. All of the methods which have just been enumerated are prophylactic rather than curative. They seek to prevent the diseases in question. The use of antitoxic and antibacterial sera — serum therapy in the narrow sense is meant to be distinctly curative of the conditions after infection has definitely taken place. Technically speaking these sera bring about what is known as passive immunity. At the present time two distinct kinds of sera are being used. (1) Antitoxic sera and (2) Anti-bacterial sera. In both of these anti-bodies are developed in the serum of another animal. (1) The antitoxic sera are the most promising -that for diphtheria (q.v.) having been proven to be the most efficient. Concerning its value there is at the present time almost no doubt A great reduction in the mortality of diphtheria has resulted since the beginning of its use by Behring in October 1894. Anti-diphtheritic serum is developed in the horse. The process of manufacture is described elsewhere. It is important that in practice the serum should be used early in the disease, as it has been shown that the mortality is only about 7 per cent when treatment has been begun on the first or second day, while after the fifth day it seems to be of little service. The amount to be given is very difficult to determine. The other most important antisera are for streptococcus poisoning (blood poisoning), for tetanus, for plague, for pneumonia and for snake bite. Others may in time be developed. In the treatment of acute tetanus (lockjaw), the results have not yet proven absolutely satisfactory; some patients have seemed to be benefited, others not. Two sera are in use. (1) Behring and Roux; (2) Tizzoni. It seems that the latter serum is the

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more successful. Some have ascribed this to a diminished virulence of the tetanus organism in Italy. A serious bar to a successful therapy is present in this disease in the great resistance shown by the nerve-cells to the diffusion of the serum. To obviate this, intraspinal and introcranial injections have been practised. The results have not yet proven entirely satisfactory.

The anti-streptococcic sera are in the experimental stage only. Just why results have not been obtained is not yet clear, but there are many different kinds of these streptococci and it may be that each form has its own particular type of poison that can be counteracted only by a serum developed with a similar form. The subject is slowly emerging from a highly technical condition and better results may be hoped for. Very striking effects have been obtained from some of the anti-venom sera, particularly in treating the cobra poisoning, by Calmette's serum, but the subject is still in the experimental stage. Anti-pneumococcic sera are beginning to be available. These will constitute a great blessing when they finally are evolved. The natural history of pneumonia and the known characters of the various types of pneumococci offer considerable hope for conquering this dread disease. Certain types of pneumonia are amenable to their use with suc

cess.

True bacteriolytic sera have not yet been devised as specific means of therapy. Such sera, as Yersin's anti-plague serum, which have been made, are thought to act partly as antitoxic, partly bacteriolytic sera, but all of the details are not yet available. Very recently the suggestion has come from Ehrlich that immunity to protozoan diseases is possible. Summarizing the results then of serum therapy it may be said that (A) active immunity can be imparted with great hope of success in smallpox, rabies and anthrax, in animals; in cholera, typhoid, plague. That curative antisera are of positive value in diphtheria and snakebite, and that hopeful results have been obtained in tetanus, plague dysentery, pneumonia, blood-poisoning (streptococcus), meningitis, poliomyelitis, some forms of streptococcus poisons. Further studies may bring more into both the hopeful and positive class. See BACTERIA; BACTERIOLYTIC; IMMUNITY; INFECTION; PATHOLOGY; TOXIN AND ANTI-TOXIN; TOXICOLOGY.

Bibliography.- Wassermann, 'Immune Sera (1904); Waldheim, Die Serum-Bakterientoxin and Organ Präparate) (1901); Encyclopedia Medica Article, Therapeutics - Serum Therapy'; Stedman, Reference Handbook of Medical Sciences'; Zinser, 'Immunity); Vaughan, 'Immune Sera, in special journals devoted to the subject, the Journal of Immunology being one of the most recent.

SMITH ELY JELLIFFE, Editor Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases.)

SERVAL, a large African wildcat (Felis serval), yellowish in color, long-legged and thickly spotted with blackish, which also appears as bars on the legs and rings around the tail. It may exceed three feet in length, besides 15 inches of tail. Its fur is highly valued for its beauty. A smaller species or variety

SERVETUS, sèr-vē'tus, Michael (properly MIGUEL SERVETE), Spanish scholar: b. Tudela in Navarre, 1511; d. Geneva, 27 Oct. 1553. He was the son of a notary, who sent him to Toulouse for the study of the civil law. Excited by the discussions of the Reformers in that city, he began to give his attention to theology, and having formed views of the Trinity antagonistic to the orthodox doctrine, removed to Germany and there printed a tract, entitled 'De Trinitatis Erroribus) (1531), which production was followed next year by his 'Dialogorum de Trinitate Libri Duo.' But he found that the expression of his opinions was obnoxious in Germany, and made his escape to France, under the name of Michael of Villa Nueva. He engaged for some time with the Frellons, book-sellers of Lyons, as corrector of the press, then went to Paris, where he studied physic, and graduated as doctor. At Paris Servetus met Calvin for the first time, and after several meetings an arrangement was made for a theological discussion between them, but Servetus failed to appear. Soon after he quarreled with the medical faculty at Paris, and quitted the city (1538). He first repaired to Charlieu, near Lyons, where he practised three years. In 1538 Servetus published his matured theological system, without his name, under the title of Christianismi Restitutio.' The magistrates of Vienna ascertained the name of the author, and Servetus was committed to prison, whence he contrived to escape. Purposing to proceed to Naples he took his way through Geneva, where he was apprehended by the magistrates on a charge of blasphemy and heresy. In order to ensure his condemnation his various writings were sifted for accusations. The magistrates of Geneva were, however, aware that many eyes were on them in respect to this extraordinary treatment of a person who was neither a subject nor a resident, but, properly speaking, a traveler kidnapped in his passage. They thought proper, therefore, to consult the magistrates of all the Protestant Swiss cantons, who, referring the matter to their divines, the latter unanimously declared for his punishment, Calvin being especially urgent and emphatic as to the necessity of putting him to death. As he refused to retract his opinions, he was condemned to the flames, which sentence Iwas carried out. Servetus is numbered among the anatomists who made the nearest approach to the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, as appears from a passage in his 'Restitution Christianismi.'

SERVIA. See SERBIA.

SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. See SERBIAN LANGUAGE and SERBIAN LITERATURE.

SERVICE-BERRY, one of the common names applied to the rosaceous genus of shrubs or small trees Amelanchier (q.v.). There are several species in the north temperate zone, the American ones differing chiefly in habit and in foliage. The leaves are alternate and simple,