One of the first bottles (1895) of diphtheria antitoxin produced at the Hygienic Laboratory, which became the NIH in 1930.  Diphtheria antitoxin, was produced by inoculating horses or goats with increasingly concentrated doses of diphtheria bacteria. The animals were then bled and their  blood serum was collected and bottled as an antitoxin. When injected into the body of a patient suffering from diphtheria, the antibodies in the horse serum neutralized the toxin causing the patient’s symptoms.
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<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/docs/page_03.html">A Short History of the National Institutes of Health</a>