ANTITOXIN. 3 



formulated by Klebs was purely and simply speculation, for 

 which no direct proof had been furnished by him. 



Experimental research has established that the patho- 

 genic microbes produce in the animal body, as also in 

 artificial media of definite composition, poisonous principles 

 — toxins, which differ from one another in physiological 

 action, and which are the immediate cause of the disease 

 symptoms. These toxins have been studied by Hankin, 

 Sydney Martin, Roux and Yersin, Fraenkel and Brieger, 

 Behring and Kitasato, Tizzoni, and others, 1 and these 

 observers have contributed a large amount of exact 

 knowledge as to the specific and different chemical and 

 physiological nature of the toxins produced by different 

 pathogenic bacteria. And although much remains still 

 unknown concerning their chemical nature, a good deal of 

 advance has nevertheless been made already. Thus Roux 

 and Yersin have shown that the toxin produced in broth 

 cultures of the diphtheria bacillus is of the nature of a fer- 

 ment, which injected as pure toxin (separated from the bacilli) 

 sets up the same typical disease and death as the injection 

 of the bacilli. In the former case the disease is produced 

 as it were at the outset by the injection of the ready-made 

 toxin, in the latter the injected bacilli multiply within the 

 body and therein gradually produce the toxin. Sydney 

 Martin has extended this to a considerable degree, by 

 showing that in the affected human body the toxin 

 (ferment) is actually present, and, further, that this ferment 

 leads to profound changes in certain tissues, whereby albu- 

 moses and alkaloids as secondary poisons are generated. 



Hankin showed that when anthrax bacilli multiply they 

 produce in the medium in which they grow (fibrine) poi- 



1 Hankin, Anthraxalbumose, Brit. Med. Journal, vol. ii., 1890, p. 8 10. 



Sydney Martin, Chemical Pathology of Anthrax, Report of Med. Off. 

 of Loc. Gov. Board, 1889-1890 ; Chemical Pathology of Diphtheria, Ibid., 

 1890-1891. 



Roux and Yersin, Contributions a l'etude de la diphtherie, Annates 

 de VInstitut Pasteur, vols, ii., iii., and iv. 



Fraenkel and Brieger, Bert. Klin. Woch., Nos. 11 and 12, and No. 

 49, 1890. 



Behring and Kitasato, Diphtherie und Tetanusimmunitat, Deutsche 

 med. Woch., 1890, No. 49. 



Kitasato, Ueber das Tetanusgift, Zeitschr.f Hygiene, x., 2. 



