Treatment of Herpes Zoster and Chicken Pox with Immune Globulin

Although we agree with Kass, Aycock, and Finland1that the evaluation of an agent in the treatment of herpes zoster must require observation of a sufficiently large number of treated and untreated patients to permit statistical comparison of both groups, we are motivated by Weintraub's2recent paper on the treatment of herpes zoster with gamma (immune) globulin to report our comparable experience. The rationale of this therapy must be that if the subjective symptoms of herpes zoster are relieved and the morphologic course of the disease is attenuated, such is due to neutralization of the virus by chicken pox virus antibodies present in the pooled immune globulin. Chicken pox is a disease of the early decades of life; whereas, herpes zoster occurs with greatest incidence from the fifth decade onward. Although data are not available regarding the age groupings of donors who contribute to