296 NATURAL SCIENCE. May, 



three months' delay. The acceptance of a paper need not, of course, 

 prevent a little fatherly care at a later stage ; some editorial pruning 

 is generally beneficial to even the best authors. But as for the 

 author's opinions, they should be left to him alone ; for does not every 

 society plainly advertise on its title-page that it is in no way respon- 

 sible for the opinions of the authors ? 



Toxins and Anti-toxins. 



A topic of the day is the treatment and prevention of diseases 

 due to organisms, by what are known as anti-toxins. So much 

 confusion exists in the popular writings on these subjects, that a brief 

 statement of their nature may interest our readers. 



In the early days of bacteriology it was thought that the damage 

 caused by microbes was a direct, almost a mechanical damage. The 

 microbes of various diseases (men said) lived and multiplied in the 

 tissues, as external parasites may live and multiply on the skin or in 

 the hair. Sometimes their presence caused irritation, and this, when 

 it became severe, was held to give rise to inflammatory symptoms. 

 Sometimes they caused mechanical lesions, actually destroying 

 tissues, as the moulds of many skin-diseases destroy the epidermis. 

 Most often they were held to play their disagreeable part by occluding 

 blood-vessels or lymphatics, by blocking up natural passages or by 

 producing mechanical pressure on nerves. No doubt all these 

 processes are accountable for many of the symptoms of diseases ; but 

 it is becoming more and more clear that they are not the most serious 

 factors. 



Many years ago Dr. Burdon Sanderson insisted upon the living 

 nature of these organisms, and on the damage they caused as being, 

 in a sense, the result of the conflicting vitalities of the microbes and 

 the tissues. The Toxin theory of diseases really is an amplification 

 of this point of view. A microbe living in a tissue exhibits vital 

 phenomena peculiar to its nature, just as a larger organism differs 

 from its fellow-organisms of other species and genera. As necessary 

 bye-products of their metabolism, many micro-organisms discharge 

 chemical substances into the surrounding media. These, for the 

 most part, are complicated proteid substances, akin to the globulins 

 and paraglobulins. Some of them, passing into the blood and being 

 carried from tissue to tissue, go their round harmlessly, and are extruded 

 by the skin or by the kidneys as useless or waste material. Others, 

 and such are the discharges of the microbes of dangerous diseases, 

 are known as toxins. Being carried through the body by the blood, 

 they exhibit an unholy affinity for some of the cells of the body — 

 generally for some of the nerve-centres. Entering these, they 

 disarrange or even destroy the normal procedure of the cells, with the 

 result that these poisoned cells are unable to discharge their peculiar 

 functions. And so, from a nidus of bacteria growing, say in a toe, 

 there may be discharged a poison that is carried by the blood all 



