a 
502 
between the quantity present and the susceptibility of the particular 
animal in question has failed entirely. Thus, for example, the serum 
of the sheep often contained very small amounts of immune bodies, that 
of the rabbit very much larger ones, and that of cattle extraordinarily 
large quantities of these substances. However, all of these animals have 
a nearly equal susceptibility for anthrax. 
Bail in addition, calls attention to the very significant fact that those 
experiments, performed with bacteriolytic serum in the test tube, in 
which in order to approximate the conditions encountered in the animal 
body the cells of fresh organs were added to the serum, revealed the 
interesting result that the bactericidal properties of the serum disap- 
peared or were greatly diminished. A somewhat similar phenomenon 
had also been observed in hemolysis by Von Dungern,* Wilde,* Hoke,” 
and others which was explained by these authors as being due to other 
processes. However, Bail insists that it is of little importance whether 
this ineffectiveness is conditional upon a failure of immune bodies or of 
complements, since the chief fact remains that the phenomenon of 
bacteriolysis is immediately suspended as soon as there exists in the test 
tube a condition somewhat similar to that encountered in the internal 
organs. In opposition to Von Dungern and Wilde he claims that there 
are many reasons why this process of bacteriolysis, which results in the 
test tube, must fail in the animal body, and he emphasizes the warning 
that, in every experiment, a careful consideration should be given to the 
results before the conclusion is reached that the bacteriolysis to be 
observed in vitro will explain the relationship which exists in the animal 
body. He also calls attention to the fact that in the case of anthrax it 
was soon shown that neither within the body of the naturally immune 
fowl nor in that of the artificially immunized rabbit did any process 
occur which resembled the bacteriolysis observed in the test tube with 
anthrax baccilli and immune serum, nor did an anthrax protective serum 
from another animal possess any bactericidal properties against this 
organism. ‘Therefore, he reasons that the idea of the possession by an 
animal of a blood and serum with bacteriolytic powers being looked upon 
as the reason either for its artificial or natural immunity against anthrax 
must be abandoned. Bail admits that, after a certain time, the death 
of the inoculated organisms must take place in the body of an immune 
animal, but he maintains that this process is the result not so much of 
the action of the body fluids, as of that of certain cells, particularly those 
of the bone marrow, and that it is not, as is the case where serum in a 
test tube is used, a quick one in which large numbers of bacteria are 
killed but on the contrary a relatively slow process accompanied by a 
*V. Dungern: Miinchen Med. Wehnschr. (1900), 57, 677. 
4Wilde: Berl. klin. Wehnschr. (1901), 38, 878; Archiv. fiir Hygiene (1902), 
44, 1. 
5 Hoke: Centralbl. fiir Bakteriol. Orig. (1903), 34, 692. 
