600 COLLECTED STUDIES IN IMMUNITY. 



bodies with the agglutinins, they could merely conclude that the 

 agglutinins were used up in the reaction. That a substance is used 

 up as a result of its action, is however, self evident, and constitutes 

 the basis of all dosage. If this were not so we should be able with 

 any poison to produce an endless toxic action, just as theoretically 

 ferment action can go on indefinitely. Although of great impor- 

 tance in itself, all that Gruber demonstrated was the fact that treat- 

 ment with specifically acting agencies caused the substances to 

 disappear. An insight into the nature of this process, particularly 

 whether it was a destruction or merely a binding, would have required 

 a further systematic analysis, and this was not undertaken. More- 

 over, just this analysis would have been extremely difficult, because 

 of the views then and perhaps still held by Gruber 1 , namely, that 

 agglutinins and bacteriolysins are identical. 



1 Gruber, Miinchener med. Wochenschrift, No. 48, 1901. 



