THEORIES OF IMMUNITY. 



these mixtures produced just as fatal results as 

 when the serum of animals dead of the disease 

 was used alone; there was therefore no antitox- 

 ine present.) In this same article he also estab- 

 lished the fact that the serum of immune rabbits 

 possessed a very active preventive power against 

 infection with the bacillus of pneumo-enteritis 

 (hog-cholera?), which he lays stress upon as 

 being the first time that an anti-infectious prop- 

 erty had been demonstrated, in addition to the 

 bactericidal and antitoxic properties of the serum, 

 this anti-infectious property being, in accord- 

 ance with his explanation, a stimulation of the 

 phagocytes in their struggles against the bac- 

 teria. The same sort of reaction has since been 

 shown to occur in typhoid fever and cholera. 

 Kichet and Hericourt (C. Rend, de l'Acad. des 

 Sciences, 1888, T. CVIL, pp. 690, 748) had 

 demonstrated before this an immunizing action in 

 the serum of animals resisting inoculation with 

 the staphylococci, and when Behring and Kita- 

 sato discovered the presence of the antitoxine 

 in diphtheria and tetanus, it was supposed that 

 this staphylococcus immunity was also antitoxic 

 in nature. It was shown to be of the same kind 



27 



